Joebot

Dude, I hate to be the PC Police here ... but come up with a different term, okay? Call the face "silly," "ridiculous," "stupid," or whatever. I know you didn't intend any offense, but just show a little common courtesy and respect to any EB members who might be gay and who might be offended by your choice of words.

In regards to Spidey, the Lego license was with Sony Pictures, not with Marvel. Thus, Lego was locked into using characters and scenes ONLY from the movies. With Batman, the conventional wisdom (had this ever been officially confirmed?) is that the license is with DC, which gives Lego more freedom in creating whatever sets or characters they want, inspired by whatever medium they want (movies, comics, cartoons, etc.). And yes, Marvel IS way better than DC. X-D

Ugh. Stupid Lego and their stupid paranoia. These scans are from a catalog that Lego themselves published! What did they think was going to happen to it?? Anyway ... '08 doesn't seem like it's quite matching up to the impossibly high bar set up by the '07 sets. Everything looks pretty good, but just not quite AS good. I think what bugs me the most is that the City sets are almost exclusively vehicles (kinda like Star Wars, now that I think about it). To where are the Cargo sets delivering their packages?? Where is the postman supposed to drop off a package?? There's no buildings!! I guess at the police station, huh? And they changed the police logo AGAIN! I was going to slap together a quick history of all the different police logos over the years, but I just couldn't muster up the energy.

Great pictures as always, Hinckley. Thanks! The dwarves look terrific. Lego really went above and beyond with those beards, and the braids hanging down the back. I definitely didn't expect that much detail. I'm a little disappointed with the big troll though. He's extremely cute ... but only four points of articulation? Ugh. Lego big-figs, like the Harry Potter cave troll (only ONE freaking arm moved!!), the abominable snowman, tiger, etc. from Adventurers, and even Hagrid ... they all have two lousy points of articulation. The troll adds wrist movement, which is nice. I could even live with neck articulation, but these things really need to be able to bend at the waist so you can move their legs. I suppose it's a cost issue, huh? Bummer. Anyway, cool set. It's really different than any Castle set Lego has done before.

Does anybody know what the little building is supposed to even be? Is it a small police station? Some kind of seige tower? There's a barricade sticking out the side of it; maybe it's a toll booth? As least we town fans have that nifty yellow Creator house to look forward to.

That is the million dollar question, my friend. I'm really curious to know what the answer is. The impression is that it goes like this: Lego: Do you guys like the 9v trains? AFOL: Yes, we love 9v trains! Lego: Oh. Well, we're cancelling them. Lego press release: "After consuling with AFOLs, Lego has decided to cancel 9v trains."

I'm glad to see that Lego's vision of a facist police state continues. Seriously, how many police sets do they think we need?? This is kind of a neat set, but I'm gonna pass. In general, I love the new City stuff coming out ... except for the planes. I'm sticking with the old school planes in my town. 4-wide 4-ever!!

AC/DC? Lego got the AC/DC license!?!?! Oh man, that would be awesome!! I can't wait to get Bon Scott and Angus Young mini-figs!! "For Those About to Build ... We Salute You!" X-D

Wow, that looks really nice. I love the design. And the color scheme is a refreshing change from the couple of recent white/red roof sets we've gotten. The Creator line continues to churn out some really cool stuff.

It's not a perfect analogy by any means, but I thought it might be illustrative to show how another company badly handled a situation that angered lots of their biggest supporters. Hopefully nobody slaps Lego with a frivolous lawsuit like Apple got hit with this week!!

No, they're definitely not idiots. And I think the "cautiously optimistic" attitude is a good one to have at this point. I WANT to believe that Lego can pull this off successfully ... but I'm not convinced that they can. My biggest concern is that they don't yet seem to understand that you simply CAN NOT p-ss off your hardcore fans and expect to be successful. Here's a recent example from a different industry. I'm a big Mac user, so I follow Apple about as closely as I do Lego. In June Apple released two models of their fancy new iPhone. People stood in line for days to buy one the first day they were on sale. Two months later, Apple cut the price of the high-end version by $200, and dropped the low-end version altogether. All those people who were there at the first day were angry. Really, REALLY angry. A product that they paid $600 for is now $400, a mere two months later! And those were Apple's diehard fanboys. Apple got bombarded with emails and phone calls, and a few days later Steve Jobs issued a press released that basically said, "Oops. Sorry, guys. Here's a $100 gift card." It was a nice gesture, but really didn't solve the problem. Apple p-ssed off their hardcore fans, and they took a ton of grief for it -- bad publicity, angry consumers. Heck, even a couple of lawsuits! Lego is now doing the same thing since the train fans tend to be hardcore, big spending Lego consumers. That's just not a good decision. It seems like Lego is TRYING to do the right thing by giving people plenty of notice about the decision (unlike the bley change). That's pretty cool. And there was a post on Lugnet that said the track gauge is likely not changing. That's pretty cool too. It's going to be a loooong wait to '09 to see what Lego comes up with .....

When those sets are used by volunteer clubs all over the world to provide tons of free advertising and publicity for Lego's products?? You bet. It's a "loss leader." Microsoft does it with XBox 360's. Apple does it with iTunes downloads. They lose money on one product in order to make more money in other areas (video game sales and iPods, respectively). Honestly, I think we all (myself included) need to stop thinking in terms of Lego "doing things for AFOLs." They did not create the Cafe Corner or the UCS Falcon out of some sense of charity or good will, or as a tribute to AFOLs. No way. They saw a market for a high-end set, so they exploited it. That's good business, and there's nothing wrong with that. But let's be honest with ourselves about their motivations -- Lego does not care about us, beyond our ability to purchase their products.

That's a fair point, and I was probably exaggerating a bit. However, I don't necessarily agree that the UCS sets or the Cafe Corner were done "just for the AFOL." Kids build those sets too. I guess what really bugs me is the language TLC uses in their press releases these days. I used to think that Lego operated on the philosophy of trying to inspire and educate children. Those are worthwhile, noble goals. Instead we get a press releases that talks about "ammortizing the development and ongoing costs." Ugh. It's just bland marketing-speak by a company that appears to have sold its soul. On the bright side, there was an encouraging post on Lugnet that said the new Train system would hopefully be somewhat backwards-compatible with the 9V system. I'm skeptical what that will mean, but it is a positive note. Thanks, dude! Yep, that's me!

Agreed. The impression I get (and I have no idea whether it's accurate or not) is that when TLC "consults with AFOLs," they're just trying to throw us a bone. It's all smoke and mirrors, designed to placate a particularly vocal portion of their consumer base. I understand that profitability is the keyword these days ... but at the risk of alienating your biggest supporters?? That's just not smart. The Lego train clubs are basically "evangelists" for TLC. They're out in the community, volunteering their time and energy and creativity to promote TLC's products. And TLC returns the favor with a big ol' middle finger. Classy. Maybe we AFOLs just have unreasonable expectations for what TLC is about. I think we all like to imagine they're a kindly group of friendly toymakers, when in fact they're just another multi-national corporation tyring to make gobs of money.

Wow. First the grey / brown color change ... then the flesh-toned mini-figs ... now the end of 9V trains. Does Lego secretly hate AFOLs? The reason I ask is that these decisions Lego is making really hit the long-time collectors the hardest, by making their existing collections non-compatible with upcoming products. Weird. I think this one is going to cause lots and lots of hard feelings.

Beats me. If you're right (and I certainly can't think of any other possible racer-related licenses), this one gets a great big "yawn" from me.

Typically the "beginning of the year" sets show up in December, right before the holidays.

That thing would overshadow my whole town! It'd be like a B-52 bomber. I had a rant a few months back about the "embiggening" (to borrow a word from the Simpsons) of the City line. The new airplanes, the new cargo ship, even the six-wide vehicles ... everything is getting bigger. The scale is all out of whack with the traditional, classic City scale. It's frustrating, because City is enjoying a great revival in the past 2-3 years, but these monstrous planes and ships just don't have any appeal to me because they don't "fit" with the rest of my collection.

I just emailed you the PDF file. Thanks again, and I hope you like the story. Yeah, writing takes real discipline, which I'm sadly lacking. My day job is a technical writer, so the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit down in front of the computer and write some more. And yes, Chapter 7 is posted!!

Hey everyone, Chapter 7: Villians are unmasked! Horrifying conspiracies are revealed! Lots of dumb, ballet-related jokes are made!! This chapter has it all. I don't want to oversell it or anything ... BUT IT'S BETTER THAN A MILLION SUPERBOWLS!!! The world as you know it will never be the same!!! So, Chapter 7 is finally posted on our website. I know, this chapter took us a long time. But it was a doozy, chock full of action and special effects, and we hope you like it. While you're there, be sure to click on the Fluxington section, and check out some more town pictures. I added some pictures of the Lamp Light District, which is Fluxington's trendy shopping area. Thanks for reading! -Joebot www.unlikelysociety.com

Hey, thanks! I hope to HAVE more published works! If you'd like, I could email you a PDF of a magazine that published my novella last year. As I mentioned above in this thread, the magazine is now defunct, but I still have the PDF file. As for how long it took to write this story ... honestly, I can't really remember. I wrote this story a couple of years ago, and I tend to write really sporadically. I get on a hot streak, and will churn out some stuff, then I get lazy and don't do anything for a few weeks. I do remember that it went through at least three or four fairly hefty edits, then lots of tweaking and fiddling. I sometimes have trouble walking away from a story and calling it DONE. On a related note ... there should be a new Unlikely Society chapter up TONIGHT!! Finally!!!

Yeah, I just noticed the guide mini-fig in the boulder chase set. Very cool. He was played by the great Alfred Molina, the same dude who played Doc Ock in Spidey 2. He said in an interview that he STILL has people come up to him and say, "Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip!" The Indy sets look fun. They certainly picked some of the best scenes from the movies. Anybody else humming the Indiana Jones theme song while looking at these?

Nope, you're not the only one. I had the same thought. I love the IDEA of the mine set, because it's something new and different that Lego has never done before. But the execution of it is a bit lacking. It's just another empty pillars-and-arches construction that we've seen countless times in the past few years. It's hard to fully judge the set based on this one picture, but it doesn't look like there's much to it. The mini-figs are terrific though, no doubt about that. And seriously, can we STOP ALREADY with the &^%$-ing catapults?!?!? Do Lego designers get a bonus check based on how many catapults that can put in a set?? Ugh. But that Troll Attack Ship ... wow. That is a nifty looking set. I haven't bought a Castle set in 15 years, but they are reeeeally tempting me that with that bad boy.

"That's the last time you'll slap yer Willie around!" -Groundskeeper Willie And pretty much anything that Ralph Wiggum has ever said.