Lyichir

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.

The reason is that, especially for bigger mechs like this one, it's very hard to have a knee that's both tight enough to support the weight of a large mech and loose enough that you can bend it without the force you use to try and bend it instead breaking another part of the model. As a Bionicle builder I'm quite familiar with the challenges of doing so even with a system explicitly designed for it—and even if you can get it to work for the purposes of an articulated display model, posing might still end up requiring more finagling than is convenient for play. Honestly I'm quite impressed with these legs for what they are—they look as sturdy as those of the similarly-sized Fire Mech while having much more streamlined and naturalistic shaping and posture.

Hoping it's a little less dull and borderline-exploitative than the MLP game Gameloft did. Gameloft is notorious for the seedier types of video game monetization, but Lego notably isn't, so it could go either way.

I like a lot of Lego-related songs but for some reason Brick by Brick from the car radio in Lego Island has a tendency to get stuck in my head even after all these years. Among the Lego movies, Queen Watevra's Not Evil in TLM2 is a masterpiece of musical theatre, both in the way it subverts common musical tropes (is it an "I am" song or a villain song?), how effectively it establishes the character, and its accompanying visuals in the movie itself (which are wonderfully trippy). I Found You from the Lego Batman Movie is also a little cheesy but nonetheless heartwarming. Favorite Bionicle song is probably Gravity Hurts, which is emotionally raw like most of Cryoshell's other songs but nonetheless has a triumphant feel to it. Other favorites include If You Dare to Believe and Think Twice/Point of View from Lego Elves.

Brick Ministry on YouTube has a speed build video of Lloyd's Titan Mech. Such a gorgeous mech set! It takes the techniques for making bigger mechs from the Ninjago Movie sets and really elevates them with more naturalistic shaping and great details.

That definitely happens. Sometimes a differentiating factor in whether a part is phased in as stock of the older version is depleted or replaces the part as a specific change to the inventory is whether the new version merely refines the part's existing functionality or actually changes its connection points—after all, in the latter case, sometimes newer sets won't even be able to make do with the older version if they take advantage of new functionality. The latter is also more likely to be recognized as a separate version of a part on Bricklink for a similar reason.

Oh, I can think of tons of directions they could take the theme. Its down-to-earth subject matter that gets elevated to fantasy with "haunted" features means that the range of subject matter it could cover is nearly as broad as themes like City or Friends. A few ideas I've had: A fair/amusement park. Honestly, like with Friends, you could potentially even make a whole wave of sets focused on this conceit. Haunted roller coaster, haunted ferris wheel, haunted carousel... the list goes on and on. A farm setting. Either a physical building like a barn and silo, a haunted vehicle like a tractor or crop duster... potentially even both! I'm sure City fans would love to see the farm setting revisited, especially if it came with some farm animals. A shopping mall. There's so much that could be done with that sort of setting due to the variety of stores and businesses. An arcade! A fitting setting for the hip young protagonists to visit, and one that could offer all sorts of interesting haunted arcade machines. A pizzeria. One of the most classic and iconic types of Lego restaurants, and one that could offer features like a haunted oven. A bowling alley. What if the alley turned into a huge mouth that "ate" the ball and pins? A haunted hotel. One of those classic spooky sorts of locations. A haunted car wash! Another great sort of business that can feel spooky (perhaps with the brushes being replaced by spikes or teeth). That's not even getting into the vast potential for vehicles. I've already MOCed a haunted hot air balloon on LDD and have been trying to come up with a ghost-fighting helicopter or airplane to fight it.

Just watched that trailer and loved it! I'm glad that they're really leaning into the oddball humor of it while also having more well-defined characters than the Lego City mini-movies.

For anyone curious about the other new parts, New Elementary has a review. Other potentially useful parts for historic builders include the new pumpkin (at least for post-colonial America time periods), black "seaweed" and carrot stalks, and a wide assortment of great earth tone plates, tiles, and wedge plates. And a new printed purple wizard hat!

I think the fact that Jack is driving a small buggy/ATV might imply that. Mind you, I expect that, like Ninjago, the media might keep things vaguer than providing a specific age. Old enough for responsibility/independence, young enough for kids to relate to.

WHAT. That's crazy in the best way. Also, if it ties in with the story, I wonder if this means that the Egyptian-inspired Pyro Snakes are in fact connected to the Serpentine Pyramid where Clutch Powers apparently found the Constrictai Fang Blade, as mentioned in The Royal Blacksmiths.

At the same time, if Lego DOESN'T branch out beyond modern day subject matter in the Xtra theme, it begs the question of why it's even branded separately from City. Previous accessory packs at least could ostensibly be used with Friends as easily as with City, which will no longer be the case if it starts focusing on minifigures. That said... it's a nice pack either way! Love the coral and teal parrot, and the updated Paradisa torso!

Unsurprising. They were still listed with preliminary names (including the CONF_BANANA codename for the theme itself) so it's not surprising that they were not supposed to go up just yet.

Hm... I love a lot about the look of this (like the parts where the columns go diagonal), and that you worked in more functionality. But it kind of feels bigger than it has to be? A cool thing about small sets like the original is that they pack detail and functionality into a smaller package, whereas this feels extremely large and rectangular. I feel like even cutting out the entire bottom "step" could make this feel a little more concise without sacrificing its strong design. Also, this isn't meant as criticism per se, but this feels very different from most Serpentine ruins in Ninjago sets, in that the restrained color scheme, heavy use of symmetry, and the repetition of the masonry bricks makes it feel much less "ruined". Which is a valid stylistic choice! But it might be worth considering how "chipping off" corners of some of the brickwork, or making the plants grow a little more wild and untamed instead of being positioned neatly in the corner of every step, might affect the overall look in a way that you might actually end up finding preferable.

If you'd asked this a couple of years ago, one of the first and most obvious answers would probably be the Netflix Marvel series, which skew more mature than the movies in general. But I feel like with the cancellation of all of those series that ship may have sailed. One other thing that I'd love to see, while not particularly timely in terms of high profile media adaptations, would be DC/Vertigo and Neil Gaiman's "Sandman". I'm a big fan of that series and it'd be neat to see characters like the Endless adapted into Lego. But with every attempt at a TV or movie adaptation amounting to nothing, I doubt there's much benefit that Lego could draw from adapting a more than 20-year-old comic book series. Another fun comics property that might be stymied by an adaptation that I've heard is lackluster is Mike Mignola's Hellboy. Like Stranger Things, its mature content tends toward the fantastic rather than the real, and its moody settings would make for some awesome sets. But not only would Lego potentially be wary of adapting a series that for certain audiences even the title might be considered mature, but last I checked Mega Bloks had acquired the license for their "Kubros" series of buildable figures, which might make it slightly harder for Lego to get the rights to (not impossible, of course, as that was several years ago now).

With licensed themes like that, I don't see the point of saying that they SHOULD discontinue them because they inevitably WILL. Movie tie-ins like that that aren't tied to much larger franchises or cinematic universes rarely last longer than a wave or two. They're more or less designed with an expiration date, which isn't to say that Lego couldn't continue the theme if it somehow turned out to be wildly successful, but there's not exactly the expectation of it becoming the next Super Heroes, Harry Potter, or Star Wars. We also don't even know what the size of that theme is going to be. I would not be surprised if it only consisted of three or four "Juniors" sets, like the Incredibles 2, Cars 3, or Toy Story 4 sets.

My guess would be that Lego probably doesn't yet have enough of those molds to produce them in the kind of quantity necessary to use those legs across every set of this theme. We've seen a similar sort of prioritization of the dual-molded legs in the past—even if they now have the capability to produce a part, that doesn't mean that they can produce it in anywhere near the same quantity as older parts that they have been producing for decades. There are other potential reasons as well—the longer legs would allow them to switch to dual-molded legs for those characters in the future, for instance, if they were to opt for costumes with shorts or boots in a future wave. And while these characters are meant to be audience surrogates to a certain extent, they're also probably meant to be aspirational—many kids in the tween-to-teen age range prefer to be seen as older or more capable than they actually are, which means that they might relate better to older, teenage characters (hence the school being a high school rather than, say, a middle school). Framing the teenage protagonists as older teens also lets them do things like drive cars without being seen as breaking the law.

So did I? Their outfits to me look like... the kind kids might wear. Jack's outfit is slightly sporty, while Parker's looks a bit more punk-rock what with the ripped denim, but both are generally fairly casual and don't strike me as particularly likely to go the way of go-go boots and parachute pants any time soon.

"Hidden Side" most likely refers to the "hidden side" to the town that is revealed to the characters using their phones to detect the ghostly presence there (and that can be revealed to kids using the app game). It's true that it's not as on-the-nose as many past theme names like "Monster Fighters," "Space Police," or "Elves" but it does evoke the sense of mystery that the genre of teen paranormal investigation entails. Hopefully that sense of mystery will be enough to hook kids—but if it is, it wouldn't be the first time. The name "Bionicle", after all, tells you remarkably little about the story or sets, but became a decade-long hit.

The Land Bounty in particular was bought at Legoland Billund, according to that Reddit post. The store in Legoland Billund has a history of debuting new waves of a theme early, even before Lego Brand Retail or other European stores.

Clothing style? Not sure what you mean by that. The regular civilians seem to wear fairly ordinary clothes—either outfits related to their professions or casual clothes like hoodies, jean jackets, and graphic tees. Not sure what among that wouldn't "age well".

I imagine that's by design. While these sets look perfectly fine even without the app game, the app game remains a strong selling point for them. As such, Lego probably wants to make clear that these are more than just your average Lego set by using bold, exciting boxart. Something that makes people do a double-take when they see it in the Lego aisle. That said, the Lego logo in the upper right (instead of the upper left by the theme name) is a curious choice. That sort of thing used to be done with older Bionicle sets, but is rare to see in a modern theme. EDIT: Thanks to the high quality, finalized box images, we also can see more of the character names! Jack (ghost-hunting boy) Parker (ghost-hunting girl) Spencer (ghost dog) J.B. (scientist) Mr. Nygh(?)/El Fuego (janitor?) Jonas Jr. (fisherman) Captain Jonas (fisherman) Mr. Branson (gravedigger) Paola (schoolgirl) Wade (schoolboy) Mr. Clarke (teacher) Rose Davids(?) (teacher) Chuck (train engineer) Ms. Santos (station master?) Dwayne (biker) Joey (biker) Interestingly, Rose (whose last name is a little hard to make out) is one of the few characters who is referred to by both first and last name. That, combined with her being front and center on the school set's boxart, makes me think she may be a key character, maybe even an antagonist. Could she be the little girl from the portrait with the bear in the school set, grown up and possibly conspiring with the ghosts?

Man, I would love that. I wish they would start at least, say, a Lego Batman comic book series. Maybe even telling further adventures with the Lego Batman Movie characters? Though I think I can understand why they don't. Lego's cheaper, shorter comics in both free and paid magazines are, all things considered, probably a safer business model than traditional comic book publication and distribution models in this day and age. These days even the "big two" comic publishers sometimes seem like their business model relies less on the comic book profits themselves and more on the much more profitable film, TV, and video game properties that can be spun off of their back catalog.