Gryphon Ink

It looks great! Definitely see the film, though. Not only will it help give texture to this piece, but it's just an awesome movie that I'm sure will inspire a lot of future MOCs. I love the mecha designs and wish the movie would do well enough to get a sequel, but that doesn't look too likely right now.

The odd thing about the snow is that I was not all that impressed with the set until I realised you could easily use as a basis for a Winter Village MOC. It just doesn't look like a Middle-Earth setting to me (although that might change after I see the movie). But change a few things around and youve got a nice little icebound dock and a couple of rowboats, plus very nice LOTR minifigs.

"Hey honey, guess what David Beckham and I have in common!" Dude, just tell her you want to buy some Lego. There are far worse things you could be doing in secret with your spare time. It's not the world's most outrageous or expensive hobby. My wife still thinks it's kind of a silly pastime, but definitely not something to be ashamed of. She's mentioned it to friends of hers, and one or two of them also have husbands who are into Lego. It also helped that Beckham, her biggest sports hero since his Man United days, has talked about his love for the Taj Mahal set. (That said, you might not want to mention this if your wife is one of those people who already thinks David Beckham is a weirdo). Don't shove her into the deep end and go running out to buy a UCS Star Destroyer for your first project. Find a good-looking, moderately priced set that revolves around something she likes, and show her that. In our case, Harry Potter and LOTR helped to win her over because she's a huge fan of both series. But the Queen Anne's Revenge was the first set I built that she really admired.

I have a really hard time feeling sorry for a person who has a thousand dollars on hand to pay for an ounce of ABS. Keep in mind that this is almost definitely a hardcore Lego collector who knows as well as we do that the figure will soon be out in a regular set.

I am truly sorry that Lego doesn't accurately represent your country's culture and standards. It really is unfortunate, but Lego is a globally marketed product that has to be designed around international standards, not those of any one country. They do seem to design things mainly for American and Western/Northern European markets, as those are the countries where Lego sells the most product. But for what it's worth, the ex-girlfriend who worked in construction was Israeli, not American. So it's not like this is an exclusively American phenomenon. Okay, we're getting farther and farther from the relevant subject, but this is absolutely preposterous. Things are not at all the same as they were in the Middle Ages. Things like labor laws, trial by jury, due process, representative government, religious freedom and the possibility of escaping your caste did not exist in any country in the world at that time. My wife and I both belong to minorities that suffered incredible persecution during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Our ancestors were frequently expelled from their lands, forced into literal slavery, deprived of basic human rights and subjected to government-sanctioned extermination campaigns. Although racism and persecution still exist today, they are simply not on the same scale. It's ridiculous to claim that things haven't gotten better. They have gotten a thousand times better, and they get better with every generation. We're in the lower economic class, and although we do have to work hard, I can assure you we're not slaves. Our ancestors were, and they would have laughed out loud at the claims you're making here. And people who oppose gay marriage weren't getting hanged or burned at the stake last time I checked. There are millions of people who oppose gay marriage. The worst thing they might have to endure would be having people tell them how primitive they are. That's really, truly not the same as being burned alive, no matter how badly your feelings may be hurt. What on Earth gives you the idea that they added a black Ghostbuster because "three white Ghostbusters seemed racist"? Let me ask you this: when was the last time you put down money to see a movie with an all black cast? Assuming you're white, I feel pretty confident in predicting that you don't do this very often. If you do, you're not typical. It's part of the human tribalistic condition that most of us want to see someone like us up on the screen. This is why most major Hollywood movies have a "token black/white guy". It's not an issue of bowing to political correctness. It's just that Hollywood wants to get more butts in the seats, so they almost always try to give us at least one character to identify with. It's been demonstrated again and again that when they don't do this, they miss out on sales. Is this even a serious question? Of course people would complain if next year's City sets featured only female cops. The sales would be abysmal. Millions of parents would refuse to buy the sets for their sons, and Lego would instantly be relegated to the status of a "girls' toy". It would be a PR and sales disaster the likes of which TLG has never seen. I'm not sure the company would survive it. Seriously, how many Barbie and Monster High playsets do you see people buying for their male children? For that matter, how many Friends sets do people buy for their sons? I'm sure a few of us here have bought them for our sons, but I'm also sure that the overall number of people who do this is commercially insignificant. You yourself pointed this out in your post about Nya's sales. Now you are saying that no one would protest about an all-female City lineup. Which is it? Well, I'm not at all sure TLG did this because of political correctness, but at least I agree with you that the "girly robot" is a little ridiculous. On the other hand, you're cherry-picking your evidence. The female robot is the one and only "token female" CMF that has not really had a valid reason for existing. The rest of them all filled logical roles. A cavewoman is invaluable for people who are trying to build prehistoric MOCs, and beyond that she's just a cool character. A girl skateboarder makes perfect sense if you want your city scenes to pop. There's nothing wrong with having female pirates. They did exist in reality, and they continue to be seen in pop culture. You may not be aware of the historical facts and you may not feel like you need them in your MOCs, but other people do want them. Women are half the world's population. Having more of them in the CMF lineup is a good thing for most of us. I feel like this discussion is close to derailing, if it hasn't done so already, so I will abstain from any further debate that is not directly related to Friends.

I'm assuming you mean in real life, not Lego. Well, you own your experience, but I own mine, and I can tell you I've known plenty of female construction workers (my mother for one, and also one of my ex-girlfriends), and have met women who were firefighters, police officers, and medical personnel. Like, significant numbers of them. It's not feminist propaganda. It's the reality of the late 20th - early 21st century. Who is this "we" that you speak of here? "We" certainly doesn't include me, or my wife, or half a billion Hunger Games and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alien fans. If everybody liked the Damsel in Distress trope, nobody would have spoken out against it. You like that - and that's fine. I'm not telling you what to like. But you don't speak for humanity. I think you may be projecting a little bit. You do realise that every James Bond movie since Goldeneye has played heavily on the fact that the "manly" spy follows a value system that is seriously out of date, don't you? Did you notice that Bond's boss has been a woman since Goldeneye? That the evil mastermind in TWINE was a woman, there have been incredible action women in most of the recent movies, and that Bond was hinting rather strongly that he has had homosexual dalliances in Skyfall? These things happened because yes, Virginia, people really were getting seriously tired of the antiquated old-school James Bond. Yes, it's true, the Damsel in Distress trope is based on archaic beliefs that have little relevance in the modern world. Other things that were popular in the Middle Ages: witch-burning, rape, torture, slavery, duels to the death, government by the "divine right" of kings with perks for nobles and zero legal protection for commoners, and the hilarious sport of dogfighting. Bring 'em all back, I say. Good old-fashioned entertainment, amirite? Did you really just say that gender equality is open for debate? And which fundamental societal institutions are being changed exactly? Everywhere I look, I see things getting better. Women getting better pay and shattering glass ceilings. People of color finally getting less unequal opportunities. Gay people being allowed the freedom to marry and be seen as normal by a new generation that simply doesn't give a damn about their sexual preferences. Playing fields leveled everywhere you look, opportunities given to millions of people who didn't have a chance to lead successful lives two generations ago, better (although still far from perfect) protection from hate crimes and discrimination. Are these the societal institutions you think we should be preserving? Many women enjoy these things. And many women don't. My wife is a mixture of old school chivalrous beliefs and the modern belief that NOTHING can stand in her way just because she's a woman. She likes me to open doors for her, too. She likes being pampered, getting massages and having me serve her drinks. She believes that because I'm a man, I'm responsible for all home improvement. Physically, she is weaker than me. I can overpower her, and I could probably knock her out with a good punch. But I am NOT her protector, because she doesn't need a protector. She has, on at least two occasions, stood up against gangsters - I'm talking about actual gangsters with guns, not punk kids wearing Eminem T-shirts - and forced them to back off because my wife is tough as %^#^&* nails. This is a very big part of why I love my wife. Not every woman is like my wife. And not every woman is like your girlfriend. So, yes, there's room in the world for some Damsel in Distress stories. But there's also room for some Lara Crofts and Nikitas. Um, no. "They" are trying to convince you that ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation don't matter, because for thousands of years those things have been used to keep certain classes of people down and deny them the opportunity to lead happy, fulfilling lives like everybody else. And that just isn't fair. No amount of crying about "cancelling our differences" will make it fair. It's time to give everybody equal opportunities, including the opportunity to be a Lego hero or a Ghostbuster. No offense, but this is dangerously close to the reasoning that was once used to claim that women could not be doctors. Or engineers. Or pilots. Or astronauts. This argument was tired in 1970. In 2013, it's ridiculous. The differences between male and female brains have not stopped women from making important scientific discoveries, saving lives every day and running billion-dollar corporations. Nor have they prevented millions of men from being wonderful, caring stay-at-home fathers (I was a SAHD for the first three years of my elder daughter's life, and I am still to a large extent "Mister Mom". My wife just doesn't have the "mothering gene". You'd be amazed how many women don't have it.) We can argue about the differences until we're all blue (or pink) in the face, and nature vs. nurture, and we can cry about how this one insulted that one and help help, I'm being oppressed, come and witness the violence inherent in the system. But the simple fact is that there is no one philosophy that works for everyone. The classic Lego storyline of action-hero boys saving helpless girls works for a very large number of people, and that is why they sell. But they also don't work for a slightly smaller (but growing) number of people - and that is why there's controversy. Let the record show that I'm still a huge Friends fan. Still waiting for Heartlake High! And I have one daughter who's anxiously waiting for a Dolphin Cruiser, while the other daughter keeps bugging me for new Chima sets. Strangely, the one who wants the Cruiser is the one who despises pink, and the one who wants Chima is our little Barbie Sparkle Pony Princess. Wow, I just had an incredible thought: what if we're all just individuals? Peace be upon you, my brothers and sisters.

I have to agree with everyone here so far, there is no way that's a $50 set unless there is a large element missing from those pictures. And I seriously doubt that element would be Smaug. When Smaug comes, he's going to be the centerpiece of his set, not an add-on. Also, I'm really not a fan of minifig Azog. Maybe better pictures will make him look better, but from the pics we've seen so far he looks badly deformed, and I don't mean the good kind of cool badly deformed but the terribly unattractive and just plain wrong badly deformed.

I have to say that I'm now looking forward to WV sets every year for two things mainly: what will the light brick do, and what will the lamppost look like. It's just fun to see what the designers come up with, and it does work very well for a nostalgic portrayal of a time when not everything was standardized (even if that nostalgia is not entirely realistic). I'm a little sad that there is no lightbrick in this year's set. But spinning the carousel does make a great alternative action feature, and won't need new batteries in five years.

Precisely! The WV started out as a great theme with smaller, beautiful sets that you could justify adding to your holiday shopping. At the prices they cost now, they ARE the holiday shopping. I just won't have the money to buy myself a WV Market and another flagship set come holiday season. It's going to be one or the other. And while the Winter Village IS a very nice theme, I'd rather get an LOTR flagship or a new train. So instead of TLG getting $150-170 from me come Chanukah time, they will get $100. Not that I believe they're worried about this very much - I'm sure there are plenty of AFOLs who are planning to buy 3-4 of these just for the horses or the arches. (I have no beef with the guys who can afford to do this. It just doesn't work for my financial situation.) I really wish this wasn't the case, because I love that carousel a little more every time I look at it. That is a great design. And you know those horses would work so well for a high fantasy theme, because they are totally Faerie horses.

Yes, it's a complicated dance. But it's a dance TLG have been practicing for as long as there have been licensed themes. And they don't need to follow the exact final designs of the movies. The Warg Attack set looks nothing like the final scene in the film. It doesn't even feature the same antagonists. It's obviously a product that was designed partly based on early concept art and partly on the descriptions in the book. And lo and behold, it was approved by the license holders. Did you see the Fountain of Youth set from POTC? That thing didn't bear the slightest resemblance to the fountain that we saw in the movie. Disney didn't care. They just wanted the money. As long as the set was "good enough" that it didn't dilute their brand, they really weren't going to send the thing back for rewrites. It's the same with Middle-Earth Enterprises and TLG. We talk too much around here about artistic vision and sets being faithful to the movies and suchlike matters as if they were the bottom line. They aren't. The decision to mount flick-fire missiles on Weathertop was not based on being faithful to the movie. It was based on putting action features in a toy because kids like action features, so TLG thought they might sell a few more sets because of it. And, again, MIE approved it without reservations. Bottom line, I don't know how many sets are going to be in this wave any more than anyone else here. But if it's a small wave, it won't be because TLG didn't have time to design and produce a bigger one. It will be because they decided for reasons unknown to put the money somewhere else.

GRogall scores the pictures again! Awesome! That carousel and operator's booth are really great, but I'm not so sure about the set as a whole. Too many little things in one set generally make it less attractive to me. This feels like $100 (insert disgustingly high Euro / blatant highway robbery Aussie price here) for a bunch of stalls. I guess that's exactly what a Winter Market is, and like I said, the carousel is beautiful - but I sure wish they had given us the carousel and one or two fewer stalls, and kept a lower price point. I didn't like the price tag on the Cottage either, but at least it was a nice large structure that felt like an expensive set. I may feel more enthusiastic after I warm up to it a little. You can't deny the beauty of that carousel. And those horses are calling my name.

Whoa, even better with the large pictures! Now you can identify just about every scene. This is a just a fantastic tribute to horror. I treasure all these movies (except for Child's Play, I really don't rate that series at all) and it's amazing to see so much love put into recreating these wonderful scenes.

Of course! Silence of the Lambs is the one that I thought might be HeartSick. I knew it was something more obvious! The Winnebago also works as a reference to From Dusk Til Dawn. I actually thought that was what it was at first, but the characters weren't "lining up" for me. I haven't seen any Walking Dead yet.

Okay, I got Saw, The Addams Family, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining, The Walking Dead, Psycho, Scooby-Doo, Se7en, a possible Texas Chainsaw and "something that might be the book HeartSick but is probably something much more obvious that I'm forgetting". That's like an entire weekend of hardcore horror watching in one MOC, and that's not even half of the actual piece! Awesome work, guys.

I wasn't talking about acommodating SPARK, and I wouldn't encourage anyone to do that. My point was not being nice to Spark, but being more diplomatic in general. There are a lot of women and men out in the real world (i.e., not AFOLs and not SPARK members) who feel that the idea of a special girls' theme for Lego is marginalizing and wrong to begin with, and some who heard the SPARK rhetoric and were offended. The word is out that Friends is a simplified, color-coded, cutesy sexist version of "Real Lego". A lot of people are turned off by the idea. Now, some of those people bought the SPARK story hook, line and sinker, and they will never change their minds about Friends. Those people tend to be more extremists who will not be satisfied by anything we can do here. If they aren't already boycotting Lego, they will probably only buy the "pure" Lego for their children. In other words, Bricks and More sets and possibly Creator. Frankly, it's their loss. They are not my worry. My concern is with normal people who happen to be feminists and heard these horror stories about Friends. Some of them are the kind of people who will research a subject. They will read reviews of the sets. They will THINK about things. And some of them will come to Eurobricks, one of the biggest Lego fan sites in the world, to do their research. For those people, and for the potential thousands of girls and women whose interest in Lego might be sparked by Friends and lead to lifelong Lego fandom, I would encourage us all to do just a little better about not treating Friends like a joke or perpetuating misogynistic stereotypes.

Sweet, soccerkid. Your brother has some skill! (Had to restrain myself from saying "some skill with a blade...") And tell Mark that's a really great palm tree.

Wow. I am loving the amazing texture in this MOC. Really nice, AncientDayz. The colors are well-chosen, the curves, the textures on the bridge, the whole thing is just WOW. Do you have plans to continue this deeper yet? .... and I just keep on staring at how you built the stairs. Awesome!

Dropouts and hooligans over in this corner, yo!

Very beautiful design there. The towers are gorgeous! I wonder if I have all those parts.

Solid set, but not very inspiring. I wish they'd gone with something a little more adventurous for the Castle revival, like a castle using a raised baseplate for a more mountainous appearance, a moat around the castle, or just architecture that wasn't so bland. This is too much like the last King's Castle to even consider buying, and it feels like they just want to keep something Castle-y on the shelves so Playmobil and the others don't steal all the knight-loving kids away from Lego. Of course, I'm just a disgruntled Kingdoms fan.

My 11YO daughter has read all the books, seen all the movies, played the LCG with me and likes the Lego theme but it's not her favorite. There's a distinct possibility her parents had something to do with her LOTR fandom, given that we are both crazy about Middle-Earth. The 5YO digs the Lego version but is still too young to even listen to the Hobbit patiently. Time will tell.

I really, REALLY have to pull the money together for Helm's Deep. I will be kicking myself for a long, long time if I miss that set.

I find that specific truck a little boring-looking, but I am more used to American-style garbage trucks myself. As for the idea of a garbage truck, I would totally support that. With all the functions a working garbage truck has to do, it could be a very impressive Technic showcase. DLuders, they did a garbage truck AND a recycling truck in the first wave of "Great Vehicles" sets last year. Granted, there is a difference between a $20 set and the $200 Technic flagship. But I think they would do it, hypothetically. It's an interesting model. I doubt that there were all that many 13YO boys clamoring for a $200 Unimog utility truck before TLG made it, either.

A little while back, i discovered something that might surprise a lot of people. I know it surprised me. The "What it is is beautiful" ad was not a standalone ad, and it gender-neutral message seems a little less inspirational when viewed in the context of the whole campaign. There was a whole series of ads in the same style, with different ones featuring boys, girls, or both. Which is awesome, right? Proof that Lego was totally being marketed as a gender-neutral toy at that time, before the evils of modern marketing took hold? Well, no. Not exactly. Because there were more boys than girls in the series, AND THE BOYS WERE BETTER BUILDERS. There's one that shows a boy and a younger girl. She's proudly holding up a multi-colored mess. He's displaying a well-crafted, color-coordinated airplane. Now, I realise that the average AFOL is going to say, well of course, he's older so he's a better builder. It makes perfect sense. And this is true. But what you really need to look at is the gender roles that the ad assigns to its subjects. Someone took the time to decide exactly what each kid here would look like and what they would be holding. It wasn't random. They were trying to send a message to people who were looking for toys to buy their children. The message was, this is a good toy for both genders. It will stimulate your young daughter's senses and hand-eye coordination. No preschool should be without Lego. And it will turn your son into A MASTER BUILDER. He will build detailed precision models of things that DO things, like this cool airplane. Heck, your boy might become an engineer if you buy him Lego! Do it now!! Of course I am exaggerating (I have to say this because some people read everything literally, and most people don't like to analyze media messages). The message in the picture is not stated so boldly. And, yes, they were definitely trying to sell Lego to both boys and girls. But it's obvious that boys were the primary target market, and that they were pursuing that target by conforming to patriarchist gender perceptions, which were very much the norm at that time, in their advertising. So, not so very different from today.

I love it, BEAVeR! Perfectly recognizable, and I can't imagine how they could get any smaller. Very creative.