Haltiamieli

In the movie Octan is an evil megacorporation that seems to own pretty much all of Lego City, including ice cream production. Puts some other Lego sets into rather different light, doesn't it...

Follow the trail to Flickr and you can see the pic in bigger size, like 1600 x 1067. Interesting details!

Most of the city and western sets look really great, but the Castle podracer is pretty boring - designwise and even as a parts pack it seems. Well, better luck next wave.

But in the movie design Emmet has no way of holding on to that glider, minifig hands do not attach into the chain part. I suppose you could attach Emmet to the gilder with a neck bracket and transparent pieces, but would that be sturdy enough for play, or look acceptable?

The trailer featured only crowned lions from this year (with scimitars as their weapons ), but who knows what they have in store for us. Too little information available to base any educated guesses on, I'm afraid. Anyway it's nice to have at least something Castle-y coming out in the winter. In addition to Disney Princesses.

That is my sour suspicion too, but in my case it is just that - suspicion and speculation: series 11 was not released in Benelux/Nordic region and someone claimed that they would release only every other series from now on, but I suspect the retailers would have more faith on The Simpsons, if it's indeed Series 13, so they might take that in, maybe a bit belatedly, and skip 14 instead. Do you have more base to your comment?

Wow, that penguin looks surprisingly good. The eyes are cutified, of course, but the shape doesn't look that bad. That might become the first Friends Animal bag that I buy for the animal, not the pieces!

I voted for generic, though I find it rather trivial whether the characters (or even places) have names or not - the wizards and the kings from the latest themes have been nameless but that doesn't necessarily make them any less exclusive or individual than Majisto, King Leo, Cedric the Bull or Basil the Bat Lord. Thus far Knights' Kingdom II has been the only Castle-theme where the backstory has really mattered, informing the set design, minifig choices etc.

I'm going to be a little disappointed if these won't spark some funny flame wars on how Lego dares to make so cheap and small and unimpressive models, maybe even release figs with more simplified designs. Princess Castle sounds like a must-buy. Hopefully it will have useful pieces and a good build (maybe a bit bigger/more substantial than this year's My First Lego Princess?) and an exclusive figure. We are still missing a princess figure in a stereotypically pink dress! Pretty please?

If the rumour is true that Nordic and Benelux countries are only getting every other series from now on, The Simpsons as Series 13 suits me well personally as I have little interest in them and buying CMFs online is bothersome and pricy (still waiting for Series 11 prices to drop to an acceptable level). On the other hand I'm afraid that retailers will think that The Simpsons will surely sell better than Series 14 (supposedly based on the upcoming MMO) and decide to skip that one instead.

I think the theme has much possibilities and many possible trapfalls. But I'm not very familiar with Disney princesses and even less so with the Disney Princesses franchise, so I'll try to keep an open mind... Calm now, outraged later. I clearly remember when I was a child I liked and found useful most of the female minifigures - though back then the figures tended to be rather unisex, of course. But I certainly I didn't scorn the pigtail hair piece nor the long hair piece. I did dislike the female pirate (I didn't have BSB, sadly, but had the figure from a pirates figure pack), not because of its sex but because the face was so atrociously designed. From the top of my head I can name four pirates, two of which are female: Blackbeard, Calico-Jack, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. That's not a list a typical kid would utter, of course, but Bonny and Read are famous (if not nearly as famous as the two males I mentioned), though much of it stems from the very fact of them being exceptions in the predominantly male world of pirates.

Maybe that was sarcasm, but if not here you go.

"The one I couldn't stop buying" would probably be a generic enough medieval soldier/knight with nice and unique heraldry, though a foot soldier or a squire for the 2012 Black Falcon(s) would probably do it too. Some other figures are higher on my wanted list, but I wouldn't need that many of them, like a medieval minstrel or a sorceress.

Well, the tavern had a crown logo – hard to make civilian buildings much more faction-y. On the other hand of course the whole set was quite far removed from the fantastic nature of the Castle 2007-2009 and practically it was, stylistically speaking, a Kingdoms set in all but release schedule. But as long as there's no officially designated "Medieval Village" line or "Castle D2C" line or what ever there's no definite answer either. Kingdoms Joust is obviously MMV's successor in the sense that it was the next medieval D2C set of the next Castle theme. But if the rumours that Joust is not going to be on the shelves much longer are true then Joust has mostly been sold concurrently with MMV and in that sense it wouldn't really be a successor. Just a sadly short-lived sibling. As much as I like MMV and the theme of civilian medieval scenery (MVR was awesome set too!), I hope Lego designers won't let themselves be restricted to that formula. I want another pair of MMV-compatible houses, but I also want a high elven marble palace and a proper enclosed tower house and a dozen other things. Really broadly speaking even The Tower of Orthanc, licenced product though it is, could be seen as part of the same chain of sets as MMV and KJ.

In the Rebrick animation contest allowed themes were City, Space, Pirates, Western, Vikings, Dino, Castle, Pharaoh’s Quest, Adventurers, Atlantis, Ninjago, and Power Miners. So I think we can expect almost anything (but not everything). Some curious recent themes MIA from the list are Monster Fighters and Chima. I'm pretty sure we can expect at least one set from Castle, Pirates, Western and Space each, though it remains to be seen how "pure" they will be thematically. I suspect the modern action angle will permeate all sets in some varying capacity. At least it seems from what we've seen thus far that the main characters will remain in same clothes through the themes?

My topmost wanted sets list: 1. Defence of Minas Tirith - Gates of the City, Grond the battering ram, either Faramir or Gandalf on horse (Faramir would obviously be better for army building and he hasn't yet appeared as minifigure, but storywise Gandalf would be a better fit, even if PJ quite botched this scene), two Gondor soldiers, three orcs. The details of this set aren't that important as long as we get a Gondor soldier - everything else is gravy. It's a deader-horse-than-Snowmane, but I'm quite uninterested in a complete Minas Tirith set in any scale that a Lego set - normal or UCS - could achieve (and obviously even more uninterested in a bigger scale model than that, because I happen to have only two kidneys). 2. Éowyn vs. Witch King - Well, d'oh, obviously. I suppose the winged beast would have to be brick-built as there's not that much scenery to include - a mûmak carcass doesn't exactly count. Éowyn, Witch King and Merry are the most important characters to include. Théoden on Snowmane (with a barding) would be a cool addition, no denying that, but I fear it would hike up the price too much and upset the balance of figures and bricks. Besides, the only thing Théoden does in the scene is dying, which might be something Lego would want to avoid depicting. 3. Gandalf vs. balrog - Not the easiest thing, but could be very cool. As I've said before, I'd like cool Moria goblins with unique helmets as much as the next guy but I don't want them in this set. Just same old Gandalf and an awesome balrog, please. Well, you can include the bridge if you want. Honorary mention: Meduseld (that's the royal house in Edoras) as the next big exclusive set. Of course even if we do get another exclusive after Orthanc it's likely to be from The Hobbit... but a man can dream.

But the cartoon can provide more context and more nuanced portrayal than a toy box on the store shelf can. It's not just the Japan disaster, the perceived popular opinion in many countries have for long been turning more vary of nuclear power. But of course, if the given set list is correct, we do get a nuclear plant set, just in a small size that doesn't include those iconic and humongous cooling towers. That I suppose is a good way to go around the problem. Who would object to a simple tech-y control panel? And a funnily radiating rod...

Open back, non-neglected interior design, using wide variety of pieces big and tiny (including but not limited to few wall panels)... just my speculation but I think Friends style is gonna be the clear winner here.

I bough 70400 few days ago and I have to admit that I have slowly drifted from the initial dislike to quite liking the dragon faction. I would have preferred some less used heraldric subject, of course, but disregarding that I think the new dragon logo is pretty good. At first when the preliminary pictures leaked it looked awkwardly like the prehistoric squirrel from the Ice Age movies, but that impression has faded. It isn't overly cartoony either. Red-and-black colour scheme with pearl grey highlights isn't exactly original, but I think it was pulled off nicely. Sometimes we can allow ourselves to embrace the cliches, can't we? These guys are well suited for the menacing army of the evil Dragon Empire. They are certainly very clearly typecasted to be evil, no denying that, so no luck for those who would have preferred more neutral factions. Paradoxically I'm less impressed with the good faction, Crowned Lions as I think I'll call them. The emblem itself is passable, much better than its 90s model at least, but somehow the characters just end up looking uninspired and boring. It's like the designers couldn't decide whether they should go boldly with the bright blue-and-white colour scheme (which, from a Finnish point of view, could have been cool) or use dark and muted colours. The resulting combination of bright blue and dark bley just does not mesh, in my opinion. Also, the white printed too thinly on the dark bley torso ends up looking very drab.

Err... we are talking about 2013 now, right? There hasn't been any Gondor soldiers in sets either. People at TLC would have to be pretty darn stupid to release such a wanted figure as a polybag before it's available in sets.

I'm not at all well-versed in superhero comics and have no idea of who's Luke Cage (or most of the others you mentioned), but having followed some news on the series I think this theory has been debunked: "So I’m going to say Luke Cage, and you’re going to say..." "I’m going to say that’s an interesting Marvel character, but no." Well, who knows for sure of course. Sometimes producers are rather devious and may mislead us in many ways.

This is of course all just speculation at this point, but I suspect that TLM CMF series, whether or not it will be officially branded as Series 12, will push the next regular non-TLM series to April-May. I think two concurrent series would seriously over-saturate market, and January is perfect timing to drum interest in the movie before the February premiere date.

Here: Mall of America Polybag Giveaways, including a new Friends element.

I don't remember any such rumour about LotR, but I think there was speculation on some other recent licenced theme, possibly Super Heroes(?), based on some vague wording in a press release. That was very vague, and all the speculation mostly over-optimistic fandom bubbling over. There's nothing vague about The Lego Movie statement, however. Of course Lego might eat their words and decide at the last moment against releasing such series, but that could happen to any Lego release.

For all you others who'd like a Lego centaur: I noticed there's a new Centaur project in Cuusoo, just a few days old. It proposes the use of the actual horse mold with a differently designed neck piece that can be attached to the minifig torso (similar to the snake tail piece and such). Overlooking the roughness of the concept pictures, it looks better than I thought it would - even if I still think that the horse body should preferably be a bit smaller than the actual Lego horse, for the human upper torso not to appear strangely timid. Cuusoo may not be the way to make this happen (almost certainly isn't) and the proposed model may not be the ideal design, but I supported because I heartily approve the general idea.