ka.lego

Wow. I'm incredibly excited about this theme. It's not without it's "faults", but as an AFOL I've sort've gotten used to the idea that I'm not necessarily the key demographic. Reality is I'd buy all the kiddyish sets even if I'm not 100% into the designs mainly for new figs, parts, etc. and then end up modifying or MOCing anyway. With that said, there's some POTENTIAL in these sets, moreso than I've felt about Power Miners or Atlantis. Agreed. And yes, I think we're relating on the kiddie-but-with-potential thing. The blue really reminds me of classic space sets, but now we're getting a nice big truck. The playability is through the roof, with the detaching sections, the alien containment cells (sorry, my German's rusty), the launching spacecraft, etc. Did I mention it's a big truck!?! Agreed. I also agree that at first glance, it's definitely a big cockpit, but the rotating bit is nice and there's some great pieces there for round building. Love it. Thank you. 'Nuff said. An unfortunately reality I've learned to lament, though there's always hope if we keep pointing it out. I have a baby boy on the way. This sort of narrative is definitely something he and I'll have to have some fun thinking about critically. All that said, I'm super excited about 2011 LEGO. We're getting some pretty fun stuff from TLC.

Exactly! Perfectly put. As a high school teacher, soon-to-be parent, and spouse to a 5th grade teacher, I see this socialized gender-norming process every day. At an earlier age, it's definitely the adults teaching our kids that girls like x and boys like y, and rarely shall the twain meet. As they get into their adolescence and teen years, their peers and pop culture become bigger factors. Again, agreed. I appreciate your entry. It really gets to the root of the problem. Like you, I do believe one solution for getting girls and young women to play with LEGO more is to surround them with LEGO and try to do your best to present them with a gender neutral environment as much as possible so as not to limit their concept of what's "acceptable" play for girls vs. boys. This leads me to the important role a company like LEGO plays in, at least, lessening the divide between girls toys and boys toys by broadening their product line away from the stereotypical "girly" sets in contrast to "not-'girly'" sets, if you know what I mean. I'm not going to suggest they completely stop creating those sets, because they must appeal to some kids or TLC wouldn't have bothered, but perhaps do a lot less of this almost insulting stereotyping which is way too gender-narrowing. Some proactive ideas: Aggressively work in more female characters into their existing "not-'girly'" / boy-biased sets, eg all System sets. Quality female characters, please. No more sideline, minor characters. Lets have some key female characters as leaders / sheroes of themes. And how about we get not just one, but two, three, or half of the figs in a theme be females? I've heard people counter this idea by saying something like, "They don't do it because when they do they don't sell." Personally, I haven't seen a good example of these hypothetical attempts. And if it is the case in focus group scenarios, I don't think that's the same as actually creating a line and seeing if it'll sell. I don't think anyone's ever really blazed the trail by committing to the idea of having more female characters in a toy line to be able to truly say it doesn't work. (Am I missing an example? Anyone know?) I think TLC is in a great position to take a risk and try it out with one theme some day. This won't bankrupt this thriving toy dynasty. Be mindful of the stereotyping. Do we really need a Hula Girl and Geisha? (Troublesome on a couple levels...biting tongue.) Baywatch-esque Lifeguard? Cutesy/sexy Pop Star? Cheerleader? I take issue with these for several reasons, but I'm not saying we shouldn't have these at all so much as I'm wondering why TLC offers these before giving us at least one figure like a female ninja, female alien, female elf warrior, female skater, female zombie, female deep sea diver, female amazon warrior, female ring master, female explorer, female surfer (soon via series 4!...finally), female karate champ, female vampire, female traffic cop, female mime, female rapper, female gorilla suit person, female race car driver, female mummy, female pilot, etc. etc. etc. In other words, they released male versions of the characters I just listed when at least one or more could've easily been females all throughout series 1-3. Instead, for the token female figs they did create, most were these stereotypical female characters mentioned earlier. (The one exception being the female snowboarder...see, that wasn't hard, was it?) The overall message being sent by the current choices is the same old tired one that adheres to unnecessarily divisive gender roles. Give us a choice! Many times all you need to do is replace a male minifig head with a female one to make it a cool female character. Why not pack in an additional female head with minifigs? Or go cheap and print one side male, the other female. (Throw us a bone and give us some hair too please...assuming there's not a helmet or other headgear.) Consider the many points in this thread and elsewhere about a variety of modes of play (eg building, conflict-centered, action-oriented, playset, dress-up, games, etc. etc. etc.) and work these into existing themes. I actually think TLC sort of does this, for example, by having one set in a theme focused on a vehicle while another is more about building a cool building, etc., but it can be done with a more conscious attempt to attract a broader audience like young women, aka appeal to other demographics ($$$) without alienating your core. Precisely. To expand on this, I'd like TLC to do a better job by giving us more sets that we wouldn't mind buying for our kids. I, for one, would feel a little hollow buying Ninjago for my daughter (or son for that matter) knowing that there's no female character in the main...just the one in a crowd of 15 boys (human and skeleton) who is so minor and secondary in the theme's narrative. I wouldn't want my daughter or son playing with a population of characters where only one is female, and a relatively unimportant character at that. What message would my kid be getting from that?

Agreed. (Plus I'm a proud nerd myself who would freak out in a good way at the prospect of an X-men set.)

I'm so glad I finally found this topic. It's a question that I think is pretty important and one that I touched upon in a recent post in another topic here on Eurobricks found here soliciting suggestions for minifig requests. Rather than repost, I'd love it if folks here would take a look by clicking here. In it, I basically looked through the first 15 pages of posts to that topic and did a rough/quick data capture of the number of requests made for female minifigs vs male minifigs. (I was sick from work and got obsessed. ) No surprise that the requests were skewed towards male minifigs, only mimicking TLG's underwhelming track record of giving us female minifigs to populate our System creations. The exact numbers... I didn't even get to remarking about what I'd noticed about the types of female minifigs that were requested, which were relatively limited and often times catering to gender stereotypes, etc. Again, that's not the case with all the requests...in fact, there were some great suggestions for female minifigs that I thought were relatively progressive. I also did some quick crunching regarding TLG's female minifig offerings in some newer as well as older themes: And, as I tried to make clear (but perhaps failed in my attempt) I wasn't intending to insult or belittle or judge anyone's requests or accuse anyone of sexism, etc. I was just pointing out a pattern in the data, though I admittedly reserved my own analysis. Anyway, I think I might've struck a nerve there and sort of decided to pull back so as not to force the issue; after all, only two or three people commented back, so I figured it wasn't the best place to engage in a dialogue about this topic. With that said, I'm really curious to hear what people think about the "data". Also, I just wanted to appreciate the thoughtful comments I've read throughout this topic. I started to do a multiquote reply, but then realized that I lost them as soon as I switched to another page of posts. (Basically, there were many great quotes in posts that I wanted to applaud. ) In general, the sentiments that resonated most with me are the ones that follow the "don't pander to us, include us" perspective. I wholeheartedly agree that things like Belville aren't the way to go...I think they're an overly simplistic and somewhat regressive (as opposed to "progressive") solution to a deeper, more complex issue. I also echo the calls for, not just an increase in the number of female characters, but an increase in the number of more well-rounded female minifig characters, especially as "leads" or "sheroes" of themes. The running example I used in an exchange with someone in response to my original post found here was the recently launched Ninjago line. It seems TLG tried to include a female character with Nya, but she's pretty one-dimensional, not to mention relegated to a limited supporting character role. I wonder, for example, why they didn't just make one or more of the main ninja characters female? Also, I found the discussions about "conflict centered" themes vs. "building themes", etc to be enlightening, and admittedly, I lean heavily towards the "conflict centered" sort of play. (Such a "boy". ) However, I wanted to add my $0.02 that there are many boys who don't fall into the "conflict centered" group just like there are many young women who enjoy the ol' "good vs evil" battles, so I'd like to see TLG less focused on the "boys are from Mars, girls from Venus" type of oversimplification, and simply do a better job at representing young women in their existing/future lines and make a concerted effort to make them feel more welcome by being less gender typical. And yes, it goes well beyond TLG, but as stated in my aforementioned posts, I think a company like LEGO is in an especially good position to help drive progress and has demonstrated an interest in doing so in the past. (More on that in my posts which can be linked to above.) So yes, I guess I'm one of those AFOL's mentioned earlier on in this topic who thinks s/he knows more than TLG does when it comes to appealing/marketing to young women...at least based on what I've seen from TLG in the past. Anyway, here I go again with my novel-length posts. Just glad this topic exists and is getting some quality dialogue.

It's interesting to see that people are paying attention to the cards. I haven't really been interested in that personally, but I think it's a great concept for LEGO to be pursuing. That goes for the other games as well (eg Minotaurus, Creationary, Monster 4)...a smart idea to "build" game pieces, etc. Adds a whole new dimension to LEGO. Anyway, I'm curious...how many people here are actually playing the game/spinning/battle aspect of these sets? On that note, I haven't been paying too close attention to the packing of cards in sets, but are they all the same or are they random? In other words, are all the Kai spinner/figure packs (2111) sold with the same cards, or if I bought two would they have different, randomly assorted cards? Wondering how LEGO's setting up this aspect and how it's catching on? My wife teaches 5th grade and I have several nephews, and I know that these types of collectible battling toys/games (eg Beyblades, Yugi-oh) are pretty popular. I haven't heard yet of too many kids who are into these sorts of things expressing interest in Ninjago, but it is early.

100% agree. This looks amazing, Solscud007! I also agree that this looks really official. Thanks for the tips. Tried to look up scrapbook paper online. Is there a particular brand, paper weight description, etc.? Is it the "canvas fabric paper" found here? Anyway, thanks so much for all the help, insights, and knowledge sharing folks. Definitely love the spirit of collaboration amongst LEGO fans. On a somewhat related note, I wonder if LEGO will ever move away from the paper/fabric capes to actually molding them out of plastic, preferably that softer plastic used for things like some of the alien heads (eg Kit Fisto), similiar to how they made the recent Magna Guard heads with the beginnings of a cloak. The cloth capes are cool, but there's definitely a shift in the overall look from the plastic to fabric. Don't get me wrong...not complaining about fabric cuz it's worked and looks cool. I just like the idea of the level of detail (eg folds, wrinkles) you can get with the molded plastic.

I saw this on BrickSet and would've replied, but it took me a while to get a password sent for my new account. Anyway, there's been some good discussion about it there. I'm torn. I completely understand LEGO's position and don't want to hurt TLG, but I'll admit that I love seeing leaked images. Judging from the excitement and discussion it generates amongst AFOLs, I'm not alone in this. We end up discussing the images, and while there's some level of folks saying they don't like what they see and won't buy it, by and large it's people talking it up, spreading the word, and getting the new products hyped up. I assume a lot of this excitement generated translates into sales. If anything, it's just another way that we gather to share our thoughts about our favorite hobby...it builds community. People get passionate about the images, but in the end you get a bunch of people frothing at the mouth...ready to spend more of their surplus income on ABS plastic. So yeah, I'm torn. If I were a business owner, in this competitive environment where people have so many different things to distract them away from your product on the internet, I'd think you'd want people excitedly chattering about your products months in advance, even if it means your competitors get wind of it as well. If I were them, I'd be more worried about the day when no one wants to see what they have in store for next season. So yeah...torn.

Yes! I completely agree. The moment I saw the teaser and saw the stromlings and dragons, I thought, "They better make those!" And then when more videos came out with the 4 heroes, I thought the same thing. They're really well-designed characters. Curious, why do you think they probably won't? I'd think it'd be a great idea for a theme. I would assume every person who plays the game would automatically buy one, provided the price was right. Even if they did a little cheap $4 Stromling polybag, I'm sure that'd be an instant buy for folks. I guess ultimately it depends on how popular LU is. Wouldn't know cuz I've never played it. Dare to dream.

That's good, though even after having all three images and doing some pixel pushing, I still had a hard time figuring out the unsolved ones. Maybe the removal of the solved riddles along with new hints will help. Fun indeed!

No problem. It was actually gratifying to see some data, despite the dataset's admitted flaws. Just to clarify, I did see your post as well a few others where people requested both male and female. If it wasn't clear, I counted those by adding a 1 in both the female and male columns. And still, the numbers of figure requests leave a huge gap between female and male. And regarding the anecdote about your kids, for the record, I don't think that's really an example of negative "gender-typing" at all. Not sure if that's what you got from my post. Again, it wasn't an indictment of anyone, just an observation of a long-standing trend that needs to be examined more closely by AFOL's and TLG, in my opinion. Granted. And again, I'm a 34 year old male AFOL. So yeah, I get that we'd have biases that might make us more often than not want guy minifigs. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be critical of and challenge our own biases nor should we simply accept this as a valid reason for why we'd ask for more dude minifigs. And I definitely don't think that the fact that "most people follow male teams" somehow implies that it's okay that we only get male athlete minifigs. Why not reflect the WNBA, or even the thousands of female athletes that play baseball, softball, football, american football, volleyball, tennis, track, etc at all levels, be it professionally or at the college, high school, junior high etc levels? As a high school teacher, I work with female high school athletes daily, and I've often heard them have to assert their skill to their male counterparts and have to defend themselves against the "argument killer": "Well there ain't no girls in the NBA." (Admitted, many times the word "girls" is replaced by something offensive and colorful. ) But, logically speaking, it's not an actual end to the argument, just an opening for a better line of questioning. And I believe a toy like LEGO is a great environment to remind young children—girls and boys alike—that all avenues are open to them, regardless of gender. By simply being more intentionally inclusive, I believe that a strong message is sent. (And an equally strong message is sent when we unquestioningly allow the "default" male-dominance.) Actually, history has shown that the stories of powerful women and women leaders have often been overlooked, overshadowed or outright ignored by historians. As a student of history and history educator, I'm the first to admit to students that history is a work in progress; just because the past has passed doesn't mean we've recorded it all. It's common knowledge amongst historians that the contributions of women in society may go largely unrecorded or misrecorded, especially in patriarchal (male dominated) societies. Now I'm not saying that we'll likely find out any time soon that there were secretly scores of female Roman legionnaires, but in more fringe circles like those of the Pirates, there were many female swashbucklers [see article] who held their own. They just aren't a part of the mainstream lore a la "Treasure Island" because, again, those were filtered by male storytellers who did so, not out of a great male conspiracy, but the "natural" male bias we've already sorta addressed above. (By the way, apparently there were female gladiators in ancient Rome [see article] as well as "Amazonian" conscripts who fought for Britain's Roman Army [see article]. I'd love minifigs of those...or three or four!) IMO there's plenty of room for further improvement, and there's actually no reason to not improve. But more on that later. I sort of get what you're saying about certain themes not lending themselves to being equal, but I still think the degree of the inequality is staggering. First off, let's go with a theme that's meant to reflect the "real world" like LEGO City. I'm looking at the recent catalog with January's sets, and of the 21 new minifigs being offered, only 2 are female. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we have to enforce some sort of strict, mechanical 50-50 rule across all sets, but we have to acknowledge that over the last few decades TLG has had something on average closer to 30-70 in favor of men. (I haven't done the research, but perhaps I will, if it seems like folks would be moved by it.) And that's a problem. Now what about themes like Ninjago, which is the newest LEGO offering and should, therefore, reflect some sort of improvement? It's not really based in history. It's complete fantasy. So actually, it doesn't have any of the limitations you outlined above to keep it from portraying at least a little glimmer of improvement towards a more equal gender balance. Why then is there 1 female character, and based on the animated movie, why is she just a main character's sister who barely has any screen-time, playing a marginal role in the story? The "that's-just-the-way-it-is" narrative doesn't hold up here and the decision to make the 4 main ninjas all boys is at best a missed opportunity. In my original post I mentioned that I didn't count the skeletons, but from the movie it's clear that they're all boys. It's hard to see this boys-club of a theme as being much sign of improvement. (See my numbers for Pharaoh's Quest and Atlantis which are also newer themes.) Why won't LEGO and resistant/hesitant AFOLs take some notes from Hollywood and other traditionally "male-leaning" industries like video games who've eased up a little in relegating women to the margins of their stories? Sure, most of the traditional monster movies have male heroes, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer was both brilliant, empowering, and refreshing. Sure, maybe most of the stories we heard growing up about treasure hunters were rugged dudes like Indiana Jones or Jake Raines, but Lara Croft was a pretty badass raider of tombs who made the genre new and exciting for women and men alike. There's a lot of potential for LEGO to follow these leads by creating new, exciting female characters, and the result would only mean fun play options for kids and AFOLs alike. And what I question is how the inclusion of female minifigures in any number of roles "wouldn't make sense". I think there's an assumption there that has to be explored more. Exactly. Whole-heartedly agree. And really, that's all I'm talking about: Making LEGO "better if they did." :thumbup: YES! When a MOC calls for it, the possibility of realism through more available female characters would be a huge "win" for AFOLs. But to note, many MOCs deal with themes that have little to do with what's perceived to be "realistic", such as SkyFi, Mechs, Post Apoc, Fantasy/Castle, Star Wars, etc., but even those tend to be pretty male-centric. You and I could go on Flickr and look at custom minifigs and count the males versus females, and... Heh. But yes, I agree that the results were surprising and interesting. And I also agree that the data is skewed based on who is on Eurobricks and posting. But that's why I included the rough survey of the TLG's minifig offerings across several themes. Thanks to sites like Brickset, it's actually pretty easy to do. Or even just by flipping through the Minifig book or sticker books, it's strikingly apparent...if one's conscious of it. And yes, as a guy, it's a challenge to step out of our filter to try and see things a little differently, but when you do, the numbers do start to shout at you. EXACTLY!!! Thanks for spelling that out so clearly. It's funny how, when I teach the difference between "sex" and "gender", it's a difficult concept for young folks to grasp. Many assume they are much more tightly linked than they are. This of course leads to difficulty when students of a certain sex start to express gender behaviors that challenge the traditional roles, like a boy who's into fashion or a girl who wants to get into mixed-martial arts. (True story...one of my senior girls is a badass MMA fighter whose won several local tournaments. Without fail, both females and males have questioned her sexuality, her true "sex", and even her beauty. Her dad had a hard time with it too. Ugh. He came around though once she started winning!!! Also, I think he realized he didn't have to worry about a boy taking advantage of her. Ha.) I'm not saying fixing LEGO will solve all this, but it sure would be a step in the right direction. Here's a related article I found where a father laments how tricky it is to navigate the gender-pigeonholing that is seemingly everywhere while trying to raise his daughter. Especially relevant because he actually uses a LEGO example. Thank you both for the thoughtful comments. This has been a great discussion and has fueled more food for thought.

Forgive me in advance for the novel... I have a tendency... Thanks so much to gabe and others for bringing up the deep gender imbalance in LEGO minifigs. For my tastes, not enough AFOL's seem visibly concerned, though I've seen some positive steps in the right direction in the form of forum posts, great publications like BrickJournal doing spotlights on female enthusiasts, etc. When it comes to something I love like LEGO, I'm especially vocal about gender imbalance. One of the reasons I love LEGO so much is that they promote imaginative play by giving us relatively abstract minifigs that we can use as simple "templates" for human beings. This lets each of us "create worlds" by dictating the types of people we want to see and interact with in these worlds. It's classic "good play". Unfortunately, when there is a major gender imbalance in terms of the sheer availability of female vs. male minifigs coupled by the still limited roles pre-assigned to LEGO female minifigs, there's a sort of "agenda setting" effect that almost makes it tough not to create male dominated LEGO worlds. Out of curiosity (and of course, with the hopes of finding data to help prove a point), I went through all fifteen pages of this thread to get a sense of the kinds of minifigs we, as global AFOLs, are asking for. I basically went through all the posts and noted how many females and males were requested. If a poster listed "either" or "both", I added one count to both female and male. If a poster didn't state it, I didn't count it in either unless it was a historical figure or somehow obvious (eg a drawing, or a sex specific name like "fireMAN" or "policeMAN"). There were 15 pages of posts, so I more than likely screwed up a few times, but given the data, I don't think it matters too much since the disparity's huge between requests for females and males. Oh, and I did leave a few out by folks like mo123567 and tazosaure who just provided long lists of names without details (btw I loved many of their suggestions, for the record), just because it was too hard to accurately determine if they intended to request female or male minifigs, etc. With that said, the results... We posted ideas for the creation of 581 new minifigs total... Total requests for females were 167 (29%) Total requests for males were 414 (71%) This runs similiar to a male dominated minifig population from TLG based on the terribly low number of female characters in almost all of their themes. Below are some examples. (NOTE: These are only individual characters, so I didn't count multiple versions of say Kai or Cole from Ninjago, which would only make the female-male disparity even bigger): Ninjago: 1 female (14%), 6 males (86%) ----- Didn't count skeletons...too much room for controversy...ha. But if I did...well... Pharaoh's Quest: 1 female (14%), 6 males (86%) ----- Again, didn't count mummies but did include Amset-Ra. Atlantis: 2 female (18%), 9 males (82%) ----- Didn't count fishy-folk but did include Poseidon statue and Atlantis Emperor cuz it wasn't Atlantis "Empress". Pirates: 10 female (9%), 103 males (91%) ----- Ouch! Didn't count skellies. In the Real World (according to the US CIA's statistics) the breakdown is more like... At birth: 46.5% female, 53% male Age 15 - Age 64: 49% female, 51% male Age 65 - : 60.5% female, 39.5% male So the way I read the data, we're 1) requesting a male-dominated minifig world and 2) getting a male-dominated one from TLG. It's not an indictment of us or TLG; I'm not trying to demonize us as male supremacists, misogynists, or as Little Rascal wannabes creating a "She Man Woman Haters Club" (I just dated myself) within LEGO. It's just what I see happening in a hobby I love and it's also something that's easily changeable...provided all parties—us as enthusiasts/consumer and TLG as producers—are first and foremost aware. (If you're still bothering to read this, thanks for getting us one step closer.) I'll stop there with my analysis. I have more ideas around this, as to why this is, how we can change it, concerns about the types of female characters we request and are offered by TLG, etc etc etc but I'd like to get folks' feedback. Also, I'm sorry if this wasn't the best thread for it. It came up recently in the Ninjago forum and then I started reading this and something "clicked". I'm new, so if there's a better spot, please point the way. Oh, and for the record, I do work as a teacher, but I've been out sick for the last few days, allowing me waaaaaaay to much time to do things like this. Ha. Full disclosure: I'm about to have my first child in May. This has definitely reemphasized my desire to see great toys like LEGO do a better job at upholding the social position of women. As an educator, I'm convinced that a child's upbringing definitely has an impact in what her/his worldview will be; this is either reinforced or transformed by the child's play habits. I want my baby, regardless of what it's sex or gender is, to live and play in worlds where there are just as many opportunities for women and men to feel free and empowered. I happen to be having a boy, and, as a "boy" myself, I think it's especially important that he gets the right messages about sex and gender at an early age. After all, many of us here already know what the most educationally exciting experiences of his childhood are gonna look like: Hours spent playing with LEGO. (With my luck, he'll think LEGO's are lame. Ha!) Thanks again if you took the time to read this. Extra thanks if you take the time to consider it. Thrilled appreciation if you respond.

Has anyone heard about the new Ninjago area in LEGO Universe? The Ugly Duckling posted a marketing video that shows that TLG is maximizing their new MMORPG to push the new line with a Ninjago tie-in. Makes perfect sense to me. I'm just wondering if this means they'll be doing this for all new themes or if this is just a specific push for Ninjago. On that note, does it seem like TLG is really making an extra big push for Ninjago? I might be misreading it, but it seems like there's a lot more marketing effort behind the launch of this line than, say, Atlantis, Power Miners, or Pharaoh's Quest. Maybe it's because those lines had their "ancestors" (eg Divers, Aqua Raiders, Rock Raiders, Adventurers) and Ninjago's an all-new-to-LEGO theme. That would explain why Pharaoh's Quest didn't receive the same treatment Ninjago's getting with the big end-cap displays at Toys R Us, big displays in Target aisles, animated movie, and special area in LEGO Universe. Anyway, just wondering. I know Ninjago's a little different too since it's trying to bridge the building toy / game / action toy gap, perhaps signaling TLG's continued attempt to broaden the brand. Come to think of it, LEGO Universe in itself was a pretty big step into new territory for TLG. Anyway, just musing...

Greetings from the Bay Area, CA. (Daly City / San Francisco) Apologies. I signed up a while ago but never introduced myself. I'm a 34-year-old AFOL who's enjoyed this last year coming out of a decade-long dark age. Thanks to my nephew, I pulled out my sizable collection during a xmas 2009 visit and slowly got back into building. Admittedly I haven't done much, but I was able to set up a Flickr and entered my first contest over at FBTB. Wish I had more time to MOC like crazy, but I was pretty busy teaching (high school) and being a touring musician. Other hobbies include art (I paint), graphic design, music, and history. I'm expecting my first baby in May, so I'm looking forward to raising a future LEGO freak. Ha. Having fun checking out the community and would love to get into the minifig / accessory customization game. Have some ideas but have no idea how to get into injection molding, so it's either via rapid prototyping or (wah wah) just through sketches or decals. More to come. Nice to meet you all.

Brilliant! As a Marvel fan, I really appreciate your customs. If only the stars would align so that Disney/Marvel would see the value of actually releasing sets based on the upcoming movies. Dare to dream. Great work!!!

It's all been said. I just wanted to share my appreciation for this great build. Very informative as well!

Oh wow. I really did lose a few hours on this. Found 3 answers, but alas I was too late. That was fun though. Really well thought-out promotion and contest. You had me doing all sorts of internet searches, singing to remember lyrics, and image editing, though clearly not in that order.

I know that in April this was an April Fools joke, but there's still a possibility that this might happen. I have a contact at Disney, and their opinion is that it's possible, but will be determined by the numbers and perceived business potential. As we've all seen with the action figures, clothing, lifestyle accessories, etc., that came out of Disney's licensing division for the release of "TRON: Legacy", they're interested in pushing the property. They've grossed about $325 million worldwide from the box office...they spent about $170 million. Not a huge gain, as far as movies go, but definitely enough to continue the planned 2011 animated series and begin talks about the sequels. They're really trying to turn this into a franchise that targets a certain group of kids. The aforementioned animated series would definitely make things even more "kid friendly / appealing" which could signal something for the potential of a TRON LEGO theme. For example, despite much of the AFOL grumbling over the increase in production of Clone Wars LEGO vs. Star Wars films (esp the original trilogy), there's a reason why more sets are being made from the weekly animated series targeted at the kids rather than the movies that came out in the 70s and 80s...hint, hint, wink wink. So maybe the TRON animated series may be the clincher. Plus, if there's continued buzz amongst AFOLs as well...just sayin'. The performance of the Prince of Persia line wasn't so hot, so I think that may have some Mouse suits hmming and hahhhing. I think the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean theme will also be a testing ground. Why do I personally care so much? Well, Disney's more than a good fit for LEGO in terms of general compatibility of their business interests. But more importantly, not only does Disney have it's properties, but now it controls Marvel's! And if Disney sees that LEGO licenses are a good way of broadening their properties (aka selling their wares), it brings me that much closer to having X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, etc. LEGO to obsess over. Ha. No really though, if Disney were to fully embrace the potential of their LEGO licensing deal by considering TRON and Marvel themes, it would seem like now would be the time to strike, considering the upcoming TRON series and 2011 and 2012's onslaught of Marvel live-action feature films: Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers. Dare to dream. Make mine Marvel. End of line. (Sorry, I'm a geek.)

Agreed whole-heartedly. Parts-collecting was the main reason I picked up some of these sets. All the pieces you listed plus some others more than make these sets a great addition to one's collection. However, as I've said before, once I actually built the Ice Dragon and Skull Bike, I was actually pretty impressed by the finished product. The "fun-" and "cool-factor" just clicked for me. The tank thing was quite the opposite though...I gave up after the first two pages. Ha. For a vehicle it was feeling a little too unsubstantial...all frame, no fat. I have a feeling it would be the same thing with the playsets—fortress, skeleton bowling, dojo—if I for some reason got my hands on those. Doubt I will, though those patterned glass pieces are tempting.

Yes. Thanks Oky. I went and corrected my post. I totally had no idea there were summer sets. After reading your correction I checked out brickpedia. Sorry if this was all covered already in this thread. I'm new to the forum and I admit I didn't read all 60+ pages of old posts. After seeing the picture for the Earth Dragon, I'm really excited. I was pleasantly surprised by the Ice Dragon and can't wait to see the rest. I just want to thank both of you for bringing this up. I've always been disappointed by the lack of quality female characters in kids' toys, especially for a great brand like LEGO that I think has more potential than most to be able to bridge the gap between "girls' play" and "boys' play". Here's hoping that Nya does end up being a great, well-rounded character. Really though, would it be so hard to have made one of the Ninjas female from the start? Better still, two? There was a thread on FBTB about suggestions to LEGO for new themes, and I expressed some concerns about the portrayal of young women and suggested some themes to help with this. I'm definitely appreciative of andinterested in this sort of constructive critique. Again, I'm new, so I'll take a look at the rest of the forums to see if there's a more appropriate spot for this topic. Cheers!

I haven't had a reason to ask before, but does anyone know if sets get released differently in different regions? Do they come out at different times and in different allotments? Or are they pretty much released at the same times?

These are great! I really wish Marvel were interested in / would work towards getting a LEGO licensing deal going. Given that they're owned by Disney now, maybe there'll be more interest given that Disney's given us Mickey/Minnie, Winnie the Pooh, Prince of Persia, Toy Story, and soon Pirates of the Caribbean. I think Marvel characters would be perfect for LEGO's brand of play. Not just with the minifigs, but also in the many options for sets—vehicle, environment, creatures, etc.—that spring from their decades of comics. For now, your Avengers mock-up definitely fills a void. Great work at capturing the characters' likenesses in relatively simple and creative ways. The short run of Spider-man sets wasn't enough—both in terms of longevity and creativity. 'Nuff said.

Hi all. I have to admit that when I first saw the announcement of this theme and the promo / marketing info that followed, I was pretty skeptical. But over the last few weeks, I've been lucky enough to pick up the smaller/mid-sized sets—Ice Dragon, Skull Motorbike, Turbo Shredder—and was quickly won over. I think the "quirkiness" of mixing skeletons, ninjas, fantasy, and vehicles first turned me off, but now I realize it's the theme's biggest asset. Not to mention the continued expansion of our definition of "minifigure", given the cool new skeleton body. (Not partial to the ugly big-headed ones, personally.) If you're looking for reviews, there are several online of varying quality. Video Reviews http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ninjago+review&aq=f&safe=safety_mode=true Minifig Reviews http://uglyduck-bricklink.blogspot.com/2011/01/lego-ninjago-minifigure-guide.html Text / Image Reviews http://www.ninjagoreviews.com/ (Who knew there was a site just for Ninjago reviews? Weird.) Hope this helps.

Hi all. I'm new here. Just wanted to add my two cents and say that I love this Ninja Go! theme. I'm not necessarily interested in the game aspect, but have to praise LEGO for making such a fun, whacky theme with great model capabilities. Ninjas + Skeletons + Dragons + Motorcyles...I mean, it's great! Really looking forward to it.