Lyichir

I think the effect of greater sales could potentially be pretty significant, especially for these bigger sets. A licensed model is going to get greater consumer attention and press outside of the traditional "Lego fan" audience. For instance, a set like the Porsche might attract fans of the brand even if they have had little or no experience with the Lego brand or the Technic sub-brand, expanding Lego's reach to new customers who might not even have become aware of a non-licensed supercar set. And beyond the potential for greater sales, for Technic fans I don't think you should discount the potential insight into the design that a licensing agreement of this nature can bring. Formalizing the partnership via a licensing agreement allows the licensee to grant Lego access to production and concept materials (up to and including a first-hand look at the assembly process for the real thing), to provide professional feedback on the authenticity of the model, and to grant the use of trademarked logos and insignias.

For a minifig-scale vehicle targeted at kids, they can indeed avoid licensing by specifically avoiding replicating the real-world vehicles, as it mentions in the Brothers Brick article. But if people are complaining about the colors on the T-Rex in this set, can you imagine the complaints if this adult-targeted set featured a totally inauthentic version of the vehicle? Especially if it were larger and more detailed than minifig-scale, making inaccuracies more obvious? As for the licensing for the vehicles, like Mark Stafford said, every license is different. Licensors' terms and demands can vary wildly depending on all sorts of factors, and they always have the power to just say "no", or to push for a higher licensing fee. In Ford's case, Speed Champions usually revolves around newer or more iconic car models than a 1990s era Explorer—they might not see as much benefit to licensing the likeness of their vehicle than, say, Delorean did (since DMC is not actively making or promoting newer models of Delorean).

Sometimes a change like that is just about making something feel newer. Using the same tornado pieces, even in a new color combo, might confuse kids into thinking the Summer and Winter Spinjitzu sets were interchangeable despite functionally offering fairly different play experiences (one designed around an action feature and the other designed around customized attachments). Especially with two waves of Spinjitzu sets in one year, it's important that they stand out from one another.

This is the kind of toxic negativity that Brickset topic was made about, and that we need to get serious about cutting down on in the AFOL community. You are basically calling the designer of this set a liar. On a site he is a part of, no less! In a topic he has recently contributed to! And heck, you go above and beyond by also insulting the Lego Ideas projects that DID get selected just to have some flimsy justification for an increasingly illogical conspiracy theory. It's one thing to say you don't like this set. It's another thing entirely to make false allegations about the designer and attack his integrity.

I think for City that sounds a little TOO pie in the sky. Not just because it's a ways out before such a thing is proven practical, but also because it's a far cry from the typical vocation-based subject matter of the City theme (focused more on everyday people at work than on leisure and luxury for the ultra-rich).

As I've said before, the situation you observe in Germany doesn't seem to be the case here in America. I kind of WISH there were widespread clearances on the Lego Movie 2 sets, since there's quite a few that are out now that I'm still looking to pick up, but for the most part retailers (both online and brick-and-mortar) don't seem to be having a problem moving product even at full price.

I'm kind of hoping there'll be one more wave next year.

A mounted police officer could be a neat change of pace. I could definitely see one of those added for variety, especially if Lego ever did a "people pack" for police like the Space people pack this year, where having many different types of police officers would be important.

A new color? Not Flame Yellowish Orange/Bright Light Orange (an existing color used prominently in themes like Legends of Chima and the City Jungle Exploration sets)?

It's not useless. Look at all the fantastic sets we've gotten through Lego Ideas already. Would you rather we never got any of those? New licensed set ideas like Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, or Minecraft can still succeed just fine. So can designs based on real-life subject matter like Birds, the Saturn V, the Maze, or the Caterham Super 7. The problem is that any proposal based on an obvious extension of an existing theme is bound to come with a larger degree of risk than a more novel concept. The lesson to take from that is to think outside the box and look for unconventional ideas that Lego isn't already exploring in its other active themes. That's why the Ideas theme exists in the first place, after all—to get feedback from fans about what Lego could be doing that they haven't already considered or recognized the sales potential of.

I said "attempted" for a reason. Unfortunately I never really came up with anything I was happy enough with to record. :/

Having attempted quite a few MOCs already with the parts of the Pop-Up Party Bus and the Systar Starship, black isn't exactly an insignificant part of the color scheme of the other Systar System sets... it's just that on those sets, it's mostly contained to the interior spaces of the sets (such as the cockpit and Karaoke stage of the bus and the interior hatches of the Starship). Which, yes, sets this apart a bit from the other Systar ships pre-rebuilding, but like you mention with the wings it doesn't seem implausible to imagine this is built out of the same parts.

The number of pieces generally reflects the number of inventoried pieces (which you can find a list of in the back of instruction booklets). That mostly includes the parts used in the main set, but certain types of extra pieces are included as well (such as extra ammo for stud shooters). The main parts that AREN'T included in the piece count are the unused spares of small parts (usually around one per part type), which are added in to "round up" the weight of that part type so that it can be effectively measured by the weight check Lego uses to verify that all necessary parts are included. Because these weight checks are not always precise enough to measure these tiny parts, Lego would rather include too many of them than too few.

Imagine if the setting for the next Minions movie was some sort of huge, elaborate castle with printed heraldry...

They’re from the Trafalgar Square set. That said, I doubt it’s a matter of shoehorning them into a set to get rid of them, but rather a case where the parts were intended to be reused in that set all along, but ended up debuting there due to the delay/cancellation of the Dots theme.

The marshy environments, architecture, and shrimp give me a Louisiana vibe. As for “Banana”, that was in the placeholder names for all the sets (presumably the code name for the whole theme).

And with the American boxes we finally have English set names! 70418 J.B.’s Ghost Lab 70419 Wrecked Shrimp Boat 70420 Graveyard Mystery 70421 El Fuego’s Stunt Truck 70422 Shrimp Shack Attack 70423 Paranormal Intercept Bus 3000 70424 Ghost Train Express 70425 Newbury Haunted High School

I think one of the main issues with a "school" set is that it's TOO relatable for kids—unless you introduce a twist, as with the Hidden Side sets, it lacks the aspirational quality of subjects like police departments, fire departments, construction crews, or other sorts of adult careers that kids don't get to experience firsthand. That also probably explains why we DO see school buses and things in the Duplo theme. For that age range, taking the bus to school is still an aspirational aspect of being a "big kid" rather than an ordinary, familiar routine. Friends has also featured school sets, but in that case I think it benefits from being more character driven, with school functioning as not just an educational space but also a sort of social setting for the characters. By contrast, City rarely features named characters and the ones it does include tend to be adults like firefighters or police officers, not established child characters who kids will recognize from other sets and media.

Eh... parking garages suffer from generally being somewhat uninteresting architecturally as well as not having a lot that goes on in them other than parking. And I think most people would be satisfied with parking vehicles on the curb of the streets, rather than needing a dedicated building for it. So I would be surprised to see Lego opt to choose a parking garage as their modular for the year when a more interesting type of business or residential building would probably be more popular, especially for bringing in first-time modular buyers. That said, the simple sort of architecture of parking garages also might make them a fairly easy type of building to MOC as a custom modular.

Regarding whether Lego can come out with sturdier joints, the problem is that once you pass a certain level of "firmness" in the joints, the legs themselves are likely to come apart when trying to pose the joints themselves. Joints that are "too firm" might also be perceived by many buyers as a quality defect, if kids who buy the sets have trouble positioning them, attaching them, or removing them. As I mentioned earlier, for MOCists of large mechs, pretty much the strongest option is using gears with worm gears for the joints, which allows for fine-tuned poses with extremely high rigidity. But for kids, the amount of time that kind of system takes to move from pose to pose is pretty much incompatible with fast-paced roleplay—I used to be frustrated even by the worm gear-based articulation in the Throwbots/Slizers sets, and in those the only joint that used those gears tended to be the "neck". Personally I really don't mind the color variation in sets. It adds to the appearance of mechanical complexity/intricacy even at a small scale, makes the building process go more smoothly with less time hunting for specific parts in a sea of similarly colored parts, and helps make models feel less monotonous. On top of that, it just feels better to me to pour out a bag of differently colored parts that go together into a cohesive model—the transformative experience of creating order out of that kind of chaos feels fundamental to the Lego building experience.

All the better then that they opted for a newer, more individualized look instead of just reused assets like the Clutch Powers movie relied so much on.

I don't know if the Fabuland workers have the same business case as Benny's Space Squad, especially as a standalone set. Even if they used standard minifig torsos and legs, they'd need multiple new head molds (as opposed to the singular helmet mold for Benny's Space Squad). And Fabuland, while nostalgic for some, doesn't have quite the same broad appeal as Classic Space (especially in America where it never took off the way it did in Europe). That's also reflected in it being a much less popular subject for MOCs in the AFOL community—far fewer Fabuland layouts seem to show up at conventions than Classic Space or Neo Classic Space. That's not to say I'd rule out a Fabuland fig or two appearing (especially, if as mentioned above, they compromised with standard minifig parts instead of the long-retired Fabuland figs), but if they did I'd sooner expect them as "extras" in a set of the Space Temple than as the primary focus of a nostalgia-centric set like Benny's Space Squad.

Monotony? Looks quite nice to me, what with the variation between plates, tiles and jumpers. I do see areas where it could be improved/simplified (particularly the base) but all in all it looks like a great likeness and an interesting and engaging build!

Repeat after me: Lego is not omnipotent. In fact, the nature of Lego as a building toy is a key part of why these challenges exist—because its individual components are designed to be broken down and rebuilt, there's a certain inherent fragility that needs to be overcome that you might not see in a pre-assembled action figure or even a single purpose model kit. Making the joints rigid and stable requires a tighter connection, while making them come apart requires a looser one. You can get around this a bit with geometric locking techniques using Technic and System, but those are often bulky by necessity and can compromise the form factor the designers intend. The most rigid solution that still allows for "articulation" of a sort is a gear-based solution using worm gears, which I've often seen used for the very largest mech MOCs, but not only is that also bulky, but it is grossly impractical for play since it forces you to turn a gear by hand to adjust a single point of articulation. Pretty much all joints short of that have a little bit of "wiggle" to allow kids to pose them easily, which when compounded with the "wiggle" in the joints in the feet and hips can be enough to compromise stability, especially over time as joints wear in. Even without knee joints, this can lead a larger mech set to be less stable over time. As for your question about smaller mechs, as the link above indicated it's not just about weight but also about the play experience. As a long-time Bionicle fan, I've seen how much trouble some younger fans have with the concept of knees—extending them to their full height on a figure that's meant to hunch over, overextending them, etc. Unintended poses like this can weaken a fan's impression of the finished product in some cases. And when posing a figure to stand up, knees can make it take longer to achieve the desired balance and pose, since you're adding another two points of articulation that need to be adjusted between each pose (even more on a multi-legged figure, which if you're curious is why many Bionicle "spider" sets either have limited articulation in some legs and/or fewer than eight legs). Without knees, there are only two points of articulation to worry about on each leg—the hips (which primarily define the pose) and the feet (which often adjust automatically if positioning them with both feet on the ground). The "knees" can be locked into a good-looking, stable position for the figure in question, whether that is extended to full height, bent into an angle that enables low to the ground poses, or, in the case of this Titan Mech, locked at a slight angle that creates a dynamic, ready-for-action look while still allowing for an impressive height.

Why? Lego is about creativity and fun. But if Lego's testing with kids shows that they have less fun or satisfaction from a mech with knees than from one without them, then it's pretty clear to them which they should opt for. There are definitely ways to add greater articulation to models but those generally come with sacrifices—sacrifices in stability, in form, or in the building or play experience. Ultimately no perfect solution exists because different people are going to want different things out of a set, and all Lego can do is try to prioritize one type of experience—in most cases, the experience of the younger or more novice builders who make up the greater part of most sets' audiences.