Sarah

Eurobricks Ladies
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Posts posted by Sarah

  1. Posted

    Spoiler

    I was just relistening to "Gotham City Guys". And... this is fairly sophisticated manipulation out of an 8 or 9 year old.  (My daughter just turned 7.5  I hope she isn't aware of this by a year from now!)

     

    Though I guess I could see a child doing a more basic form of this.  Especially when they are playing both characters. "I don't want you anyway. Now... Superman" picking up another figure close to hand. "That's a cool guy."  And then batman "Wait a moment. I'm better than Superman!"  Though you'd think something like this would come more with outside force (like a brother saying "Batman wouldn't marry her. He's a loner type of guy!"  Though my daughter tends to copy her older brother rather than oppose him (And their fights come into more of him wanting her to branch out on her own more. But he's better at coming up with better combinations and she innately sees that what he's come up with is so cool!... ) IF he's playing with a guy on a motor-cycle mech, she wants her animal-guy to have a robot and a method of transportation as well.  I have not yet seen them claim a figure for their own. They do tend to have different sorts of figures they play with so there isn't a lot of fighting over that.  And when they have instructions they can work together to put together something like the Hobbit Hole.

     

  2. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Renny The Spaceman said:
      Hide contents

    I really like the second suggestion, I'm accepting that as my personal headcanon. Now all we need is to figure out: 

    .Where did Vitruvius go  

    .Why if the catchy song wasn't brainwashing why did

    A) The harmony town residents act so weirdly

    --In the sister's eyes, this was not weird. When watching a musical, you do not think the characters are acting weirdly!

    B) Why did Batman and Emmet dance against their will

    .Why the Man upstairs no longer cares for LEGO

    He really liked the LEgo world he was building up. When it was being destroyed and rebuilt by the kids, he vacated the premises to prevent getting angry at the chaos, letting their imagination run wild. There will be time later to make his careful Lego setups, after all.  Even at Lego exhibitions, they are "No touch, just look"

    .Why the heck were the Fabulanders enslaved

     

     

  4. Posted · Edited by Peppermint_M
    Please don't quote pictures

    7 hours ago, Foxes Productionz said:

    New LEGO MOVIE 2 Sets!! :drool: :wub:

     

    I just saw these, posted by Lego themselves, on Facebook.  It is really neat to have my first look be when Lego releases them since so many I see here first! All three look excellent. I'll probably have to choose just one (And that will likely be influenced by which one my kids are most interested in)  I love the mech in this one. But also the Domes in the Not Evil Palace, and the star and hearts (after seeing the movie I really want some of these guys)  And I can see that palace being used as a backdrop for play.  But I also love all the characters at the Spa and those transparent blue pieces, and the child vampire!.  Feels very "Elsa"

  5. Posted

    On 2/9/2019 at 5:34 PM, legonerd54321 said:

    I think the weather was a big play in it, considering it was only screening in the US currently. Where I was I had to second guess myself before going because of how nasty the weather was Thursday and Friday.

    I think you are right about the weather being a big play.

     

    We are in Texas and I had pre-bought tickets to the show... and I was tempted not to go out onto the slippery streets anwyay. But, well. I'd bought tickets and my daughter was looking forward to it so out we went.

  7. Posted · Edited by Sarah

    7 hours ago, teljesnegyzet said:

    I was loving the movie until the scenes of the mother. She made me so angry that I couldn't enjoy the rest of the movie.

    "Oh, you dropped an object from your hand? You are forbidden to search for it!" "Are you quarreling with your sibling that is normal in every family? Destroy everything you had worked for in the last 5+ years as a hobby!" And of course, "Don't you dare to give me any information, I know everything better without it!"

    The character development of the father was really good in the first movie, it was one of the moments that made the movie a classic. It really annoys me the mother didn't have to change her point of view in the second one.

    As a mother myself, just because quarreling happens between every kid set of siblings doesn't mean there should be no consequences.  The absolute worst punishment my parents could give my sister and I were to send us to our own rooms. We'd sit in our doorways and glare at each other instead of going into our room and playing with our room full of toys. These kids have other toys to play with. Note that putting the Legos away did not mean it was forever, they were playing happily again by the end of the movie. IT meant a time out was needed for them to remember they actually enjoy playing together and need to make more efforts not to just fight all the time.

     

    I actually think part of the problem may be that she DIDN't actually follow through on these threats in the past. (though I get it. I like my kids playing with Lego. I don't want to take them away either!) And no, you can't always search for something you dropped when doing so means you aren't paying attention to what you are supposed to be doing.

  8. Posted

    On 2/8/2019 at 11:37 PM, Robert8 said:

    I just watched it. Unpopular opinion here: I liked this one bettet than TLM1. (I mean TLM1 was a better movie, but I just happen to like the sequel more). 

    I saw it Saturday with my daughter (my husband and son were away at Winter Camp, more's the pity.  My kids are age 7 (her) and age 11 (him) So I see a lot of our house on the screen in this movie.

     

    I do agree to liking this movie better than the previous one. Though both movies are favorites here.  During the movie, my daughter was up dancing in the aisle during several of the musical numbers and most of the credits (Until she ran out of energy).

     

    One thing I noticed: (especially if you assume in this movie that the daughter is about the same age the son was in the first movie.) The son was better at building realistic buildings. But the daughter's building style is more creative overall.  And look how much care she took to include all of her brother's favorite characters primary motivators -- building separate sets focused on each of them.

     

    I saw this movie as they each had a primary "Sig fig" that the other person didn't touch at all. And a set of characters that they were more likely to be the one that played with, but both could use.

     

    After the movie we went to the store, and my daughter was chatting with me how she wanted "That one horn character"  (Unikitty).  Since all she had was $5 (That's her allowance), we felt the packets and found her one and she was quite pleased.  I also got her Emmet's Piece set to put on her dresser. She wants to give it to her brother after he has a chance to watch the movie and understand why its meaningful.

     

  9. Posted · Edited by Sarah

    On 1/23/2019 at 2:13 PM, ShaydDeGrai said:

    I'm probably the wrong person to ask about mini-dolls vs. mini-figs.  It took me decades to warm to the idea of articulated mini-figures replacing my old "slabbies."

    I appreciate the role mini-dolls fill in drawing girls to Lego (and frankly, speaking as a former engineering professor, anything that gets young girls interested in building toys, design,  3-D visualization, etc. is a good thing) and I especially like the fact that the building experience offered by Friends and Elves, etc. is not "dumbed down" as some construction-toys-for-girls have been in the past (both in general as well as from TLG).  That said, I have to side with the voices that found mini-dolls in Elves to be a bit of a turn-off.  I was fine with the color schemes, the designs, even cutesy dragons, but the lack of articulation and limited customization options of the mini-doll compared to the mini-figure just struct me as a lost opportunity for the theme; not to mention the added factor of perpetuating a "Lego for girls/Lego for guys" mentality as opposed to "Lego for everyone."

    I realize that the design of the mini-doll was very well researched and it has been quite successful in its goal of appealing to girls, but on the flip side, but I think it is a mischaracterization to think that mini-figs only appeal to boys and girls aren't interested in Lego without mini-dolls.  My daughter (3.5 y.o.) loves posing mini-figs and complains both that they don't have knee joints and that short legs don't articulate at all.  I gave her a mini-doll to play with to see what she'd do with it and she decided it was mannequin and put it in the window of a store.  In her world, posable mini-figs represented people, more rigid mini-dolls were props.

    With all the clever things TLG has done for its collectable mini-figure line, I have to believe that they _could have_ done Elves with regular mini-figures, retained a strong feminine appeal to the line, and opened it up with more unisex appeal as well.  Figures aside, Elves had some very nice offerings that I could very easily see appealing to children of both genders, but then you add the figures back in and few 9 year old males want to be seen as the boy who plays with dolls; "action figures" sure, that's cool, but dolls?  

    Stigmas die hard, both in society and in the minds of children.  

    I think TLG saw dolls vs. figs for Elves as being the safe bet for appealing to the female market (at the expense of the male demographic - which, granted, was pretty well served by a lot of other themes) but I think it was also a missed opportunity to create a bridge between the two demographics.  I suppose "separate but equal" (Friends, Princesses, Elves, etc. v. Nexo-Knights, Ninjago, etc.) is a step up from "separate but not on par" (Belville, Click-its, etc. v. Pretty much anything but Galador), but the mini-doll is something of a double edged sword, it draws girls into the product "experience" but then risks isolating them in female-targetted themes rather than integrating them.

    I remember playing with Castle themed sets as a kid.  My best friend, his sister and I all played together.  Even though knights are thought of as a guy thing, there was room in our narrative for princesses (and female knights) and elves and whatever else we wanted to imagine.  The sets were universal enough to have both male and (at least some) female appeal.  Looking at themes today, such as Elves versus Nexo-Knights, and things just seem a lot more gender polarized.  Mini-dolls play a big role in this.  The Elves line could have been a bridge to migrate girls who were introduced to Lego by Friends to get interested in other themes like City and Creator rather than consigning that audience to "doll-centric" offerings (DC Superhero Girls v. DC Superheroes, anyone? Do we really need both, or is this a "solution" to a problem of their own making?)

    Elves had a lot to offer and I'm sorry to see it retired, but I think going with mini-dolls rather than mini-figures was a missed opportunity; creatively, artistically and sociologically.

     

    For DECADES, Lego has had sets out there with just minifigures in them.  They did not capture a great part of the female market, even though individual females would buy them.

     

    When *I* got into Lego, Minifigures were not the "Normal" type of figure. My first figures were Homemaker. I wonder if Lego fans at the time would have been arguing against minifigs and how unrealistic their proportions were. And how it was so much more Lego-like to BUILD your own people and your own animals and even your own tractor. None of these specialized pieces that make it harder to rebuild the set if you lose one little piece...

     

    So the experiment has already been tried, and failed for years. It's time to do something new. And something that really is getting a lot more girls into buying Legos and playing Legos than where they were in the "treat everyone like everyone likes minifigs best" world  (because if you just repeat it often enough, it will become true, right?)

     

  11. Posted · Edited by Sarah

    On 1/3/2019 at 7:05 AM, Robert8 said:

    One might think this CMF series is meant to appeal girls more than usual

    Bigger bags (similar to the Friends ones), purple color (similar to Friends), Unikitty is randomly there and there are whopping 4 female singers like for no reason at all

    My daughter is a lot more interested in The Lego Movie sets we've seen so far than she has been with much Lego we've seen in the store  (She tends to like the animals. Dragons in Elves. Friends animals. And Minecraft Farm, etc scenes) But this one has her excited. Though so far her favorite set is Warrior Kitty.

     

    (And I've got an older son/younger daughter with 4 year age difference, with the younger being the more creative Lego-builder -- so this movie is being eagerly looked forward to for many reasons.)

  12. Posted

    On 1/3/2019 at 10:46 AM, rodiziorobs said:

    I started lukewarm on minidolls--the lack of wrist articulation got me initially, but I got over that quickly enough.

    The next thing I got hung up on was the difficulty in customizing--Elves especially just repeated the same torsos, and Friends were too City for me (I prefer sci-fi or fantasy--very few Friends dolls fit the bill).

    Thankfully, more torsos have been introduced, including a ton of familiar but new Elves characters, so customizing is much easier--and the sci-fi end of things is being addressed with TLM2 sets, which is my long-hoped-for theme of Friends in Space! There is still a lot of ground to cover, and the dolls will probably never have the same breadth of customizability as the minifigure (due to the 'fig's decades-long headstart) but its getting better.

    I still like minifigures, and will still collect and use and customize them, but minidolls have worked their way permanently into my building patterns alongside the noble 'fig, and I'm glad to have 'em.

     

    The Youtuber ellieV toys does a lot with customizing Minidolls.  Both my daughter and I enjoy watching her videos.

    For Example: Harry Potter Minidolls: 

     

  13. Posted · Edited by Sarah

    3 hours ago, Dorayaki said:

    Well, for advertising reasons they won;t make Vicky a main Friend, otherwise they could just do another box with Vicky's theme. Ironically Vicky even gets a softer face expression, while the five main Friends still only have one face.

    That reminds me if the boxes are able to add transformation gimmicks such as changing into bedrooms, piano or live stages, that they would not be useless in ordinary plays. Otherwise they're literally figure&accessory pack with a storage container if we don't just use the parts for other uses.

     

    Honestly... I JUST bought the pods. I'd prefer the heart storage boxes (stackable!) so I'm thinking of returning the pods and waiting.

     

  14. Posted · Edited by Sarah

    I expect my daughter will like the spacemen minifigs. I figured we needed two copies. One for me and one for the kids—and the pink one will likely get the most use (though she could surprise me since she also loves blue) — though probably as a girl baby instead of an adult male. We have no baby minifigs so baby-looking minifigs are liable to play the part

  15. Posted

    On 11/18/2018 at 12:46 PM, Soupperson1 said:

    Just2Good has stated that the new Friends line isn’t selling as well as expected. Why do you guys think this is the case? 

     

    It should also be noted doll lines rarely last, I think Barbie and American Girl are the only two that have stood the test of time. (Not counting Disney Princess of course!) I think TLM2 will certainly give minidolls a boost. 

    American Girl is struggling this year and last.

  17. Posted

    On 11/20/2018 at 10:51 AM, Lyichir said:

    These look awesome (the latter set especially). An open-ended set for what seems like a pretty open-ended character.

    My daughter (7 years old) is going to love BOTH of these sets.  Too bad her birthday is not until August. I might encourage her to hold onto christmas money. The first for the wonderful alien character and the open ended princess (The princess who still needs a story written about her) and the second for making her own Queen forms.  This movie is the epitomy of how she plays with Legos (my son to a lesser extent as well.)  We really were sad when Mixels went away because it gave so many pieces for making our own characters.

     

  18. Posted

    On 10/1/2018 at 11:09 AM, Nexogeek said:

    Wonder if their will be any TLM2 related McDonald's happy meal gift, if so I wonder if it will be the same trend of non lego toys and cups or if they will finally break the recent trend... man I remember as a kid those racers polybags they had wish they would do something simple 4-6 piece brick based toy

    Our family could use more of those Lego cups. We still have the original Lego movie ones and they are holding up much better than other similar cups.

     

  19. Posted · Edited by Sarah

    On 7/14/2018 at 3:39 AM, spiderfan2000 said:

    The sets all look great!  The quality of the builds look well above average and look accurate to what was shown in the trailer.  I question if $70 for the Sweet Mayhem's ship is accurate though.  That seems like a somewhat high price considering the build size and small selection of minifigures.  It still looks like an excellent set either way.  I can't wait to see what else is in store for this theme!

    Note that minidolls seem to be more expensive to make. We get fewer of them in Friends/Elves sets.  (and that is a very elaborate minidoll)

  20. Posted

    On 11/11/2017 at 11:49 AM, Soupperson1 said:

    I thought they could’ve been continual looking for a solution to the articulated wrists since the mini doll release in 2012, obviously they weren’t or still haven’t found a solution. Don’t mega blocks figures have similar leg proportions and achieve leg articulation? 

     

    Mega block figures are quite a bit bigger than minidolls.  I got one of the American girl figures to put in my world but she’s a giant and does not fit

  23. Posted

    On 1/25/2017 at 11:25 PM, dr_spock said:

    The dog could be a Best of Show winner and is in the parade as a VIP (Very Important Puppy). The set is a bit like those Littlest Pet Shop toys that little girls like.  LEGO is probably trying to play well into that market group.

     

    My daughter is going to love this set. She's a huge fan of the animals. Not so much the people

  24. Posted

    On 1/11/2017 at 10:31 AM, Esvald Forceswoop said:

    Ithey kept falling and falling. Really they were only good for displaying purposes, but I was a 10-12 year old child, I wanted to have my own Star Wars in my room.

     

     

    Partially we are talking about different age groups. I was no longer playing dollhouse at ages 10-12. (well, Maybe at age 10 but not by age 12) I had moved on to programming (in Basic -- We had a Kaypro computer and at the end of that time I got a Commodore 64 of my very own), Making my own robot from a kit, etc. I don't think I was doing much with dolls at all. We made up skits from music we liked and put them on for family and occasionally visiting friends. We played board games. I wrote stories in the Star Trek universe (TOS) and the Batman and Robin TV-show universe. I think my Lego days were mostly behind me at that time too. Though I did play with Star Wars figures when younger -- a friend of ours had them -- but we pretty much played the same way I talked about above with dollhouse figures. We were not trying for accuracy (I'm not even sure we knew the REAL Star Wars story at the time -- early 1980s.. The figures were just cool)

     

  25. Posted · Edited by Sarah

    "hopping" That's a good way to describe how characters move.  IF we physically moved them a step at a time.

    I think it could also be termed "flying" -- Unless you have a car to put them in. Then the car Zooms across the floor. (but if the destination is on a table/bed, there is equal chances of the car "driving" up the leg or having a quick flying jaunt to the destination)

    We didn't have doll house cars, so we would put all the people in a shoe box and then move that shoe box to the house in the other room -- the shoebox was the "car" (And no, we didn't put wheels on it or decorate it like a car or anything. Think of a fairy godmother. *tap" and it is a car.  *tap* and it turns back into shoebox/general storage for whatever is needed.