Lord Insanity

I'm confused. How is LEGO delivering your order earlier than expected not considered a good thing? You do know how crowdfunding works right? When I ordered a Fishing Boat it very clearly gave me a delivery estimate of approximately 18 months out. Getting it in only 10 months in impressive. It is almost unheard of for any company to deliver anything crowdfunded in less than a year. But then shipping and distribution is one of the few things LEGO actually still does better than the "knockoff" brands. LEGO certainly hasn't had superior part quality for a few years now. But I am supposed to be a "cult member"

Wow that grocery store exceeded my expectations in every regard. When the rumor hit I was hoping we would at least get the shopping cart mold back and have a passable facade. The final set has those and one of the best interiors of any modern town building. It actually has an aisle in it! I dare say this is the best actual store Lego has ever released in town and/or city.

So the new passenger train is the first standard release passenger train set since the Metroliner to have doors in the coaches. That automatically makes this the best standard release passenger train since the Metroliner to me. I really like the new station too. Sure it's no 2150 the "good version" of Grand Central Station* but for every Grand Central Station equivalent in real life where I live, there are a dozen "shack" stations like the new set. The new set is probably the most realistic (around me) modern passenger station Lego has ever made. If anything the "shack" is too big. *seriously if I have to pick between yellow and red for a building color I will pick red every time. Now that tan modern remake version of Grand Central Station posted earlier, that would be awesome.

Impressively fast for a crowd funded item that didn't even go into production until after orders were closed. LEGO should be proud of themselves for pulling that off despite the current global shipping problems.

So its a "Space Academy" that took an old decommissioned NASA shuttle and installed... an elvish reactor... that allows it to launch with no boosters or fuel tank. But seriously though, I took one look at that building and thought those planets are going to be super useful for giant holo-displays in my bridges and command centers. Those stickers are detailed but still stylized and generic enough to be useful for all sorts of crazy sci-fi holo-display planets. The mini-dolls all have a nice color variant classic space logo on them too. Two space suits and two coveralls, nice. Mini-dolls make for nice "aliens" and "elves" to complement all the mini-fig "humans" and you can never have too many classic space logo variant torsos. It would have been awesome to get that shuttle windscreen in trans-purple but at least its not trans-light blue.

I thought it was odd that the City space sets didn't have a ship or shuttle this time around. Now we know why. I do find it hilarious that we have a very NASA X-15 inspired ship (they barely even changed the name) that has a trans-yellow windscreen and it is automatically awesome. So if we take it as a given that LEGO was never going to make the City space sets "windows" trans-yellow then Mr. MacLane is my hero for insisting on it. But what if he unintentionally made the City space sets not use trans-yellow to differentiate them? Oops! (That still doesn't explain whey they used that lame City trans-light blue instead of the awesome Space trans-dark blue) When I first saw the thumbnail pic I immediately thought of 6872 Xenon X-Craft. Then I looked at the full picture and realized it suffers the stupidly oversized problem most Star Wars fighters have. Despite its shaping being more like what should be a $10-$20 set the actual size and price point is more like an update to 6780 XT Starship or 6931 FX Star Patroller. I don't mind that for a long range interstellar exploration ship but I would have preferred a smaller exploration craft. (The Slave I from 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City and Vader's TIE from 75251 Darth Vader's Castle proves LEGO can make awesome looking smaller craft even in Star Wars) So lets see, in 2022 we have: 1. Basically a modern remake of 6901 Mobile Lab in the form of the City space 60348 Lunar Roving Vehicle (Which can have its windows upgraded to trans-yellow) 2. Basically a modern remake of 6970 Beta I Command Base in the form of the City space 60350 Lunar Research Base (unfortunately stuck on lame trans-light blue for now) 3. Basically a modern remake of 6985 Cosmic Fleet Voyager in the form of the terribly colored 80035 Monkie Kid's Galactic Explorer (Yes seriously, watch Jangbricks's review) 4. The upcoming XL-15 from Lightyear (Which seems to be the best overall color scheme of the bunch.) Talk about Space fans being spoiled for choice right now.

Am I the only one that saw the picture of the new 60349 Lunar Space Station and thought that works better as a The Martian or Interstellar style space ship? Heck those astronauts can be used as the kind of heavy armored space marines that the galaxy squad figures wished they were. They even have that awesome blue variant of the classic space logo printed on their backpacks. If the windows were a better trans-color this theme would be perfect.

Elves ran for 4 years. Compared to most once and done themes that is a really good run. If this rumor is accurate and the sets are even half as good as Elves, it will be a fantastic source of parts for building things. Of course no mini-figs means unless you don't mind using mini-dolls as a fantasy race of non-human "elves" there will be no actual "people". I would prefer a quality mini-fig based theme but I will accept a good source of parts if one is to be had. If that dragon is as good as 41179 Queen Dragon's Rescue, I'm sold on that for sure.

What? There is a whole wave of classic Space style sets coming out in the form of the new City space sets. Maybe that is not to most AFOLs preference but that is very much the modern version of classic Space for today's kids. We have been "20 years away from permanent bases and routine flights to the Moon" for over 40 years now. As far as Avatar 2 goes I never said I hate Avatar or Cameron. I don't know where that idea is coming from at all. I found Avatar entertaining but completely average. I would rank it higher than Jupiter Ascending but lower than Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. I have no doubt Avatar 2 will make money but I suspect it will wind up like Lone Ranger and John Carter and waste so much money on marketing that they "didn't make back their budget." After all it can't count on the Titanic fans to come out a watch it like what happened to the first one. I hope I am wrong, a sci-fi movie doing well can only lead to more sci-fi being green lighted by Hollywood after all. Most importantly we would be more likely to get more cool sci-fi Lego sets. The story is exactly what I was referring to as being "meh whatever". That is what the collective audience did too. Avatar didn't become a modern pop culture icon the way Star Wars or even Terminator did. Considering the marketing campaign for the movie was all about "From the director of Titanic" I absolutely believe it's box office take was directly related to people that would not normally care for sci-fi going to see it because "Titanic". That won't happen with the sequel because the Titanic fans know what it is now. I really do hope I am wrong because I would love to see some quality sci-fi getting Hollywood executives' attention.

Cameron's last movie Terminator Dark Fate bombed badly, and that was advertised as a direct sequel to one of his best movies Terminator 2 Judgment Day. Honestly I find the rumor of Lego sets based on Cameron's Avatar 2 to be rather baffling. It's not like the first movie was really all that good or had an impact on pop culture the way Star Wars or even Terminator did. It made a lot of money in the box office because a whole lot of Titanic fans went to see it because it was Cameron's new movie. Considering their response was a collective: "Meh, whatever." (hence the no real impact on pop culture) I seriously doubt the sequel will pull those kind of numbers. This just screams The Lone Ranger style Lego clearance sales to me. (of course that could be really useful as parts packs to us builders) Maybe I will be surprised and the sequel will have something good going for it. However, based on the first movie I am struggling to even think of more than a few Halo wanabe style sets Lego could even make. Perhaps some blue Elves and an enchanted forest chunk. (That could be useful for Fantasy Castle fans.) It's just weird, I really do hope they know something we don't. Now all those awesome classic Space style City space sets, those are amazing. Except for the trans light blue windows, I would have preferred literally any other trans color at all. I have despised trans light blue as a window color since I was kid. The rest of the sets are so good I will buy them anyway in the hope that all the window parts (especially those new dome pieces) eventually come in a more useful trans color.

Yes I do find it fascinating that people quickly bought something simply because it had "modular" in the name without actually truly looking at the picture and realizing it is a different scale than actual modular buildings. I stand by my statement that I believe many people are going to have buyers remorse once they actually build the thing and realize the scale is way off.

Well if the rocket itself is similar to the previous Deep Space Rocket and Launch Control, but without the launch control building, I could see getting the crawler and gantry instead. I mean a $70 price increase plus the parts equivalent from the control building and track could be doable at that scale. I hope they continue using the modular sections that the 2019 sets had. That was one of the best aspects of those sets. If the new ones use the same connection standard (and why wouldn't they when they used it in the undersea base too) and we could mix an match that would be awesome. As much as I too would like some actual classic space style stuff, I can't say no to well designed sets that are most of the way there anyway. If the new wave does in fact use the classic logo (which the 2019 wave should have used anyway) all we really need is some trans dark blue windscreens. Hopefully we'll get some nice useful classic logo stickers too. (I would prefer some printed tiles, slopes, and/or wall panels but lets be realistic here)

Those flight suits are quite nice. The jumpsuit is fantastic. While we had the Star Trek style red jacket, we have never had a basic jumpsuit (or coveralls) with the classic space logo. I really hope those are coming in the new City Space wave. We would finally have a good non-suited generic crewman torso for capital ships and moonbases.

I find it fascinating that the "Modular Lego Store" was the first to sell out. I think a lot of people are going to have buyers remorse on that one when they realize, contrary to its name, it is not in fact mini-fig compatible scale. I mean the doors on that thing look more suitable to technic figs than mini-figs. Each "door" is 6 studs wide and 10 bricks high! I am constantly amazed by how terrible most people are at gauging size and scale from pictures. I just assumed most Lego fans would be very good at mentally scaling pictures to "real world size", but apparently not. I am not surprised the Quest Builder was dead last. The real appeal of that project would have been new fig prints and recolored accessories. Neither of which was possible through the Bricklink program. I am happy that the two projects I wanted most from this wave I was able to order and they are going to be made, the Mountain Windmill and the Bowling Alley.

That brick built Iron Man Figure is truly weird. Give me a $40 X-Men sentinel that good and I would buy at least a dozen. (I am being totally serious I would drop $480 on a dozen sentinels that good in a heartbeat.) A brick build Iron Man though? Why? Did he get zapped by Ant Man's enlarging field or something, what is the point?

Wow that is fantastic. I think that is by far and away the best "completely snow covered" roof they have made. It actually looks like it has the roof underneath and isn't just solid snow. Normally I replace any all white roof with one more like the post office had. The way they managed to give the illusion that there is snow covering everything rather than merely replaced by white is nothing short of spectacular. I may have to rethink my whole layout. I am really glad they spit the sleigh into its own set. Generally speaking I hate it when they combine things that should be separate sets into one large "combo set". (*cough* Speed Champions) I really like that sleigh and will probably get one (but only one, I already bought several extra deer.) By making the house a separate set I may get two or three and color swap a few walls. It would have been highly unlikely I would have been willing to do that if they were combined into one set. Red nosed reindeer is owned by the The Rudolph Company, LP. Lego can't legally just put a "Rudolph" in a set without licensing it.

To elaborate on what I stated back on page 229 of this thread: Push back the release of a random Creator Expert style set we don't even know exists yet. Next years equivalent of the recently announced Farm Truck for example. We don't know what ever is planned exists yet, so we won't miss a delay of a month or so (or even a year if crowdfunding exceeds expectations.) That sort of set would be aimed at similar demographics so wouldn't be significantly impacting sales to other demographics either. The absolute worst case scenario for LEGO is they merely shifted probable sales from their planned set to guaranteed sales of the crowdfunded set. Yes LEGO chose to produce more than they crowdfunded and then were left sitting on stock they couldn't sell. And there we are back to: The whole point of crowdfunding is so they know how many to make. Most businesses would kill to have a product and customer base compatible with crowdfunding. They would know exactly how many to make and wouldn't have any leftover stock. But for some strange reason LEGO can't make this simple concept work for them despite having all the tools necessary at their disposal.

Sorry for the delay in responding, I was offline for a few days. This makes no sense. They wouldn't be losing sales because the hypothetical production they are diverting is already sold. This isn't something that would be sitting on a shelf when another set would obviously sell many more units. They would literally only be producing the number they sold. If it is accurate that a "police station" sells hundreds or even thousands of times more units, then LEGO would only be delaying production of the "police station" by a week or two. The average consumer wouldn't even notice that kind of a delay. If on the opposite end of the hypothetical, they somehow managed to crowdfund a million units, then that sort of destroys the idea that the "police station" would obviously out sell it. I wouldn't expect that scenario to be very likely but LEGO didn't even give it a chance. Most businesses would kill to have a product and consumer base that is compatible with crowdfunding. Guaranteed sales, no leftover stock. LEGO has people that want to "put their money where their mouth is" and they are being completely oblivious and not letting them. So you agree that LEGO has completely missed the point of crowdfunding then.

First, I didn't say to delay a known best selling item like the next police station. I said they should delay one of the sets we don't even know exists like the recently announced Creator Expert Pickup Truck. No one would have noticed that dropping a month later because we didn't know it existed. (Even a year delay if the program did ridiculously good.) Second, this isn't some idle speculation that set X "would totally sell better" than set Y. This is literally people ordering and committing to buy a set. There is no risk of lost sales when the very nature of the process guarantees selling the items they are producing. Other than a minimum production quantity to justify switching over the tooling, there should not be any limits on quantity at all. The entire point of crowdfunding is that they know how many to make. Just to illustrate how absurd this is lets assume we are in fact delaying the next police station in order to produce several of these sets in quantities of tens of thousands. That would not cost LEGO any lost sales at all because the production would be going to sets that are already sold and people are obligated to buy them. Guaranteed sales with no leftover stock. This is any normal companies dream come true. Where I work, we have a word for people that ignore a guaranteed sale: Fired.

The entire point of crowdfunding is so they know how many to make. Putting an artificial limit is literally leaving demand unfulfilled. People are literally trying to put their money where their mouths are and LEGO won't let them. Here is a bold idea, push back production of sets we don't even know exist yet so they can make more of the things people are actually trying to give them money for right now. I don't care how long it takes to actually get the product delivered if they are actually going produce the thing to meet demand. All they have to do is be open and honest about the lead time for production even if it is a year or so. Hypothetically, if a problem occurs that pushes production back a month just say so. These things happen all the time but usually we don't know because we don't know what is coming. This isn't rocket science. Sorry, but I can not for the life of me fathom why LEGO is just going to hand money to the bootleggers.

I have been saving up several hundred dollars for a few months waiting for the Bricklink "put your money where your mouth is" Ideas program. I get home from work and find the only two projects out of the seven available that I wanted were sold out ?! The entire point of crowd funding and pre-paying is so they know how many to make. A hard limit of 5,000? I would have expected 5,000 to be the minimum number to even produce the things. I could see a hard limit of 5,000,000 due to logistics but 5,000 from the number one toy company in the world. Yeah right. You know what the LEGO company has achieved here. They have completely destroyed any moral reservations I have about just buying the inevitable Chinese bootlegs of the sets I wanted. Ironically the dark red bootleg parts are likely to be better quality than the dark red LEGO parts anyway.

@allanp too. Sorry I was not explaining this more clearly. I put "brain wiring" in quotes to emphasize the imprecise nature of the term. In context of my original post on the subject I was referring to embryological development of specific "brain wiring" differences. (That is not something that can be changed later.) I also mistakenly assumed it was clear in context that "male" and "female" "brain wiring" was more of a spectrum of subtle gradation rather than a hard "this is male" "this is female". Humans are not separate from life on earth, we are very much a part of the biology shared by the rest of planet. Biology is a total mess. Individual humans can have multiple different "brain wiring" "areas" from multiple different spots on the "male to female" difference spectrum. There are however very specific testable and measurable areas of the brain with differences that tend toward specific genders. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hope-relationships/201402/brain-differences-between-genders https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/

See this is the part you are not understanding. Anyone that is not cisgender is by definition suffering an intersex condition. A cisgender male didn't choose to be "brain wired" male anymore than a transgender female chose to be "brain wired" female. The difference is a cisgender male just happens to have their anatomy match their "brain wiring" while a transgender female does not. Gender dysphoria is literally distress at a persons "brain wiring" not matching their anatomy. By transitioning their anatomy to match their "brain wiring" the problem of gender dysphoria is cured. Putting gender emphasis on anatomy (which can be changed), rather than "brain wiring" (which can not) seems rather silly if you know anything at all about biological development and how messy it is.

I don't mean to single Fuppylodders out specifically here, but this question keeps cropping up and seems to warrant a much more specific answer in general. Most species on Earth do not fall into the "typical" male and female gender division. Many species can flat out change sex at will in response to specific environmental pressures. The movie Finding Nemo should have had Nemo's dad change sex after his mate was eaten because that is what real life Clownfish do. All Humans at conception are always functionally asexual an will grow typical female genitalia by default. People with XY chromosomes usually have a burst of developmental testosterone in the womb at 8 weeks which causes them to grow typical male genitalia. There is a small population in the Dominican Republic that has girls born that do not experience developmental testosterone until they hit puberty around age 12 and become fully functional men after being a girl for the first 12 years of their lives. Yes, really. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to realize that "brain wiring" is even more unpredictable. While there is no significant difference of intelligence level between "male" and "female" "brain wiring" there are several differences that are testable and measurable. A person can't "fake it" or "just decide one day", they are born that way. When "brain wiring" doesn't match the physical anatomy we can change the anatomy. We can't change "brain wiring" and I would find it utterly horrific if someone tried to. One specific interpretation of one specific translation of one specific religious text is flat out wrong. Period.

That was pretty much the whole point of what I was saying in the full quote. The abbreviation Xmas is actually centuries old. It stems from the original Greek word for Christ, Χριστός. Thus the hilarity of a certain subset of modern Christians that complain about "Xmas" not understanding that the "X" literally represents Χριστός or in English, Christ. So on the whole bigotry thing, it might be helpful (especially for non-native English speakers) to go back the definitions I learned in grade school. "Bias" is something people don't know or realize they have. "Prejudice" is something people do know they have. Someone can be biased without malice because they don't realize they are in fact biased. Prejudice is when people know they are making a specific judgement and doing so anyway. The only comment in this thread that really went "there" could possibly be "only" bias. The whole metaphor of "trying to save someone that is about to go off a cliff" reads like he actually means well to me. The problem with the metaphor of course is that the "cliff" his a figment of his imagination. Just to explain my perspective and in the interest of full disclosure due to the gracious nature of several people sharing personal details of their own lives, every major branch of my family's ancestors came to the U.S. specifically to escape religious persecution. I am very much a proud supporter of equal rights for everyone and routinely correct conservative Christians that in the U.S., they have the right to be Christian and all they have to accept is that fact that everyone else has the right to not be. Growing up my parents took my siblings and I to several different churches of all different denominations in an attempt to find one that was actually worth going to. Over the years I learned quite a diverse representation of Christianity. It ranged from "the Bible is the literal word of God" to "the Bible was written by mere mortals and must be carefully interpreted away from human biases". Needless to say we prefer churches toward the "interpretation" end of the spectrum. Several years ago my wife and I attended a service at a conservative Mennonite church. Most of the people there tended toward the "literal word of god" end of the spectrum. So it was really interesting when the pastor starts quoting different language translations of the bible and suggesting to the congregation that the "prohibition of homosexuality" was not what it seems. He stated it was actually not a prohibition of people that are born that way, but rather the people that were engaging in behavior contrary to their born orientation just for the thrill, in the same way youth today decided to start eating Tide pods. It was rather fascinating to see a bunch of old conservative Christians have their minds blown. Quite a few of them seemed to have an actual realization that the previous interpretation was in fact wrong. It is hard to correct the biases of someone that has been taught them their whole lives. If they are still prejudiced after having their biases taught to them, they deserved to be called bigots. Just because there are two sides to an issue doesn't mean one side isn't completely wrong.