Lyichir

I love the color variation in the waterways! It reminds me of the pixelated water in certain 16-bit JRPGs like Golden Sun. I've been wanting to try MOCing a mermaid kingdom for Lego Elves, and the use of color in this MOC may well prove inspirational.

His logo was referenced in last year's Ninjago City set as well. Just because Lego has come a long way since those days doesn't mean they've forgotten their roots... Looking at those reviews, I've gotta say I LOVE the cowboy and horse costume. The miniaturization of the Lego horse design is done really effectively.

I think it's much more likely to simply be a consequence of a larger model generally needing a longer development time. Compared to a smaller, static display piece like the ship in a bottle, a large and complex model like Voltron will need a lot more testing to make sure it's sturdy and stable and that all the features (especially articulation and being able to separate out into the individual lions without any issues) work as intended.

Haha, didn't think about those ones. Obviously those ones would take the top spot, though it's not as much of a milestone with a single-figure set. :P

Are there any other figures in that set? If not, that'll make it the first set to feature all female characters (the set that's come closest was Samurai VXL, which had three female characters and a male Vermillion soldier). I think that's a pretty big milestone for Ninjago!

Honestly, I don't even think "Pharaoh's Quest" was that limiting in the grand scheme of things anyway. Yes, the name is limited to Ancient Egypt, at least for that year's sets. But if it had been wildly successful and Lego had wanted to extend it, they could easily have taken the "sequel" approach by giving the next year's theme a different name while maintaining the same character names and general tone. An approach like this would have both pros and cons, but assuming the preceding theme had been successful enough, it could easily be as effective or moreso than a theme started from scratch. And it wouldn't be unprecedented even for this specific genre—after all, Adventurers' final year went by the substantially different title of "Orient Expedition". And the Indiana Jones franchise started with the hyper-specific title of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" before opting for a more generic, modifiable title structure for subsequent movies.

I've been helping my brother with concepts for his castle MOC and one thing that's dawned on me as a result is how important a higher price point could be for variety. One reason the past two King's Castles have been so similar is that to have a "complete" castle at that scale, you are sort of forced to stick to the bare essentials of what kids expect from a castle. At a larger size (which, by necessity, comes with a higher price point), you can make space for not just a dungeon, gatehouse, throne, and treasure room like the past few castles have had, but also less common features like kitchens, bedchambers, stables, and even a medieval garderobe (after all, other themes like City have proven that kids love toilets!). Of course, if you want to include all of those sorts of subjects, the scale does get pretty ridiculously large, which is why even if we do get a more expensive castle modularity will probably still be an important feature. Not only will that allow for a cheaper option for kids who can't afford the "main" castle, but it will allow features to be split between multiple sets. The tricky part of that is making sure that neither modular feels incomplete on its own, while at the same time avoiding having too much redundancy. A pair of sets like Vladek's Dark Fortress from Knights' Kingdom II, with a large front section as the "main" castle that can be expanded with a rear gate and dock from another set, might be the best way to go about something like that.

Your argument got pretty nonsensical there at the end, considering there's never been more than 9 Star Wars buildable figures per year. They may not be the strongest sellers but they also make up a miniscule part of Lego's overall product portfolio these days (as any fan of Constraction in general will grudgingly explain). I think the thing that benefits the Ninjago line is that kids like it. There's one big reason why this year's first wave is smaller than most, and that's because it's subdivided between TV and Movie sets. I've seen little reason to believe that Lego is devoting that much less attention to the Ninjago brand than it had previously—it's just trying to exploit the success of the movie sets a little longer before that fades from memory and the TV-based sets once again become the be-all and end-all for the theme.

Because pooling themes together comes with positives and negatives. Putting Arctic into the existing, consistently popular City theme makes sense—despite the vastly different setting it has a lot in common with the City theme in terms of subject matter, representing modern day, real-world vehicles and workers at a building level targeted to the young kids who will be most interested in that sort of thing. It's a whole different story to conceptualize a brand-new theme from the ground up when the various themes have little in common. First of all, you have to establish success in a theme before you broaden out too far. I certainly doubt Lego would have included subthemes like Arctic or Jungle Explorers in the City theme when it was first starting out and before it had established its reliable sales, because the theme would have looked totally incoherent if they had done so. It's only by building such a strong foundation with mainstays like Fire, Police, and Construction sets that the City theme has become capable of branching out so far without totally losing its focus. I wouldn't necessarily even assume that Lego hasn't hoped to replicate this success with other themes—it's entirely possible that, if, say, Fantasy Castle had been a consistent success on the level of City, it would have continued on with that consistent branding and possibly eventually moved on to new factions. But that theme's initial success, like the success of previous and later Castle themes, petered out, and in those sorts of events rebranding from scratch is a safer strategy than trying to fight the downward inertia of a decline in popularity. And when that's happening consistently with a certain type of theme, it only makes sense to start planning for that sort of thing in advance—the chances that any one Castle theme will suddenly make the theme as a whole into a phenomenon on the level of City or Ninjago is far from guaranteed, and it's always good to have another idea waiting in the wings. Secondly, the whole point of having "themes" in the first place is to establish a sense of consistency. It makes no sense to brand sets based on, say, Vikings, the same as they would brand sets based on the Wild West, because the two subjects have substantially different appeal and aren't linked in any direct way. If you were to make a theme like, say, Time Cruisers, that created some sort of direct through line you might have a better bet of something like that working—but that's going to be a tough nut to crack given the substantial disadvantage you're starting from in terms of a consistent brand identity. So why do the hard thing and try to make some sort of overarching theme work when you could take the far safer path and create individual, internally consistent themes instead? After all, there already is an overarching brand for all these disparate themes—it's the one the company is named for. An intermediate level of categorization might make sense for fansites like this, but in terms of creating strong, popular themes, there's really no need to bother categorizing that broadly.

Ninjago and Friends would like a word (as would Nexo Knights, since as far as Lego's concerned it's yet another iteration on the overarching Castle theme). You might want to amend your statement to "there aren't non-licensed evergreen themes that I personally like (other than City) available," since that seems to be where you're drawing the line.

Neither of those should be an issue because plant-based polyethylene is chemically close to identical to fossil fuel-based polyethylene. There’s a reason Lego is starting out replacing this material and not ABS, and it’s not just the serendipity of many plant parts being made of PE.

2x2 satellite dishes don’t work well on this type of microfigure. They’d have to cover the whole head with it to even attach it and it’d look comically oversized. A ninja like Lloyd or Kai might make a more obvious or better fitting character for this type of figure, but ultimately I’m pretty happy they opted for a recognizable female character since there are so few of those to choose from for the earlier decades.

I think it may just be meant to be one fig for each "decade", from their 1978 introduction through the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s. Pixal would presumably represent the last of those, though no telling why she'd be chosen over any other figure from that era.

Good review! These sets don't totally describe the movie accurately, but understandably so to provide the most play value and variety of figures across only two sets. It's good to get Killmonger in his more differentiated costume despite him not wearing that for much of the movie. Small correction—the piece used for Klaue's arm cannon in this set (which isn't the best match for the one in the movie) isn't new. The handheld part is from Ultra Agents and the lightning piece is from Nexo Knights.

Technically didn't the Jim Spaceborn books (loosely based on the classic space theme) precede those Pirates comics?

Dark Red has been pretty prone to variation since it was first introduced—the color was even reformulated to try to make it more consistent (hence the official Lego color being called "New Dark Red" despite no change in the target hue). It's a shame Lego hasn't been able to get it more under control than it has, but it's a challenging problem to overcome with dark, rich colors like that (Medium Lilac has had similar issues).

That's just the mask from the Ninjago Movie. So the only one who doesn't have a mask quite like that is Zane, since his used white as the base color. Personally I'm much more interested in getting color-coded Kendo masks for all the ninja, since those ARE unique. Zane, Jay, Cole, and Kai have gotten (or will get, in Zane's case) ones color-coded to them. Lloyd and Nya have not (Lloyd's mask in the Kendo Lloyd polybag has the correct gold bars but seems to lack the colored border of the other ninjas).

Lego Elves Immersion managed to get ahold of a bunch of screenshots of this year's Elves webisodes! There's a lot confirmed in these screenshots, so spoiler warning: EDIT: They've now uploaded many (though not all) of the webisodes themselves! Those come with a whole other batch of much more concrete story spoilers, so hang on tight!

Really? That's unusual... I would have expected the building instructions to be online, or even in the Lego Boost app. It's rare for even alternate build instructions in themes other than Creator to get physical booklets these days, let alone builds that require multiple sets...

Eh, I wouldn't be so sure of that. There are what, two more Fantastic Beasts movies planned (one this year)? I doubt the returned Harry Potter theme is likely to last much longer than that, unless they start announcing new movies. Very few Lego licensed themes last very long without new media, and even the last run of Harry Potter sets dried up after Deathly Hallows wrapped up.

I imagine it's often harder to pitch a brand-new replacement for an existing "good enough" technique than it is to introduce a new part for a scenario where existing parts simply won't do. The old slope brick dresses weren't perfect but they were still effective and had a pretty classic lineage. Changing that up was probably a pretty big ask, especially when fan responses to those sorts of changes to a long-held status quo are not always that favorable anyway.

Why? Think it should be in the header for the Castle subforum instead?

Not sure, but the top of the gearbox cover and torso shell is quite a bit more complex than a minifigure neck. It's entirely possible that even if it didn't attach with standard connection points it might still be able to fit snugly somehow.

Gosh, the way people talk about the Ninjago Movie in this topic makes it sound like it had no redeeming qualities whatsoever... Like, was I let down a bit by the Ninjago Movie? Yes. Did I still enjoy it? Also yes. I appreciated the sort of father-son narrative it focused on (which I feel like it handled much better than the TV series). The characters, while not all particularly well-developed, were likeable. The humor was fantastic. The visuals were stunning. All in all it was a pretty solid kids movie—it just wasn't as exceptional as the previous two Lego movies had led us to expect. And it's not like the TV series itself is flawless, either. At its best, it's great, but there have been a number of points that fall pretty far short of its best (Wrong Place, Wrong Time, anyone?). The voice actors for the main characters are much less diverse. The plot can be convoluted and often downright silly, sometimes severely undercutting the genuine emotion (my appreciation of Zane's emotional sacrifice scene in season 3, for instance, is always undercut by the knowledge that it only became necessary because their ridiculous original plan, to pitch a shrinking diet pill into the Overlord's mouth, was thwarted). This isn't a situation like, say, The Last Airbender where one of the best animated series in a generation gets adapted in a way that almost universally makes things worse. This is a case where a TV series based on a Lego toyline got adapted, and they decided to change some things up with mixed results. It's not the end of the world and it's pretty far from even the end of the theme.

I vaguely remember reading that it was planned as a ONE-wave theme but was extended both because of decent sales and because it was viewed as a good space in which to test the "app brick" concept. Don't quote me on that, though. I'll also say that "typical two-year action theme" might not be a great phrase to use because I also think I remember reading that Atlantis was planned as a single-year theme and was extended due to much stronger sales than expected. That leaves, what, Power Miners as the archetypical "two-year" theme? Not enough of a precedent to interpret a trend from, at any rate.