Lyichir

I have to say that I am absurdly interested in those and I don't know why. I think a part of me fantasizes about every part of my life being reducible to Lego, but at the same time I kind of know that if I had any of these I probably wouldn't be able to make much use of them except at conventions, and only briefly then. :P Still, they look to be a step up from your typical foam play weapons in terms of accuracy. So that's pretty cool.

Nope. At best, it looks like she has sleeves that are ratty and full of holes. At worst, it makes her look robotic—the contrast of the colored bones with the differently colored shells accentuates unclad areas that may not have been totally accurate, but also didn't attract too much attention in black. I'm not even particularly fond of the flesh-on-flesh solution used for Chirrut's bare arm; I'm even less so when it comes to areas that ought to be partially or completely covered.

I don't know if anyone here has seen the catalog leaks from a week or so ago, but I think Pirates fans might find the new Lego Ninjago Movie version of the Destiny's Bounty interesting. As someone who knows very little about actual ship architecture or structure I can't speak to how realistic or traditional it might be, but I can say that it seems to lack any of the sorts of steampunk or sci-fi trappings of past iterations of the ship. The catalog lists it as 169.99 €, though not knowing the provenance of these leaks I can't really be sure which countries that applies to. Either way, it's a very big, very impressive ship that I thought might interest you all even if it isn't technically "Pirates".

Still no news about when the Netflix series will be released, but it does have a new title: "Lego Elves: Secrets of Elvendale"

Very nice! I had figured it would not be too hard to modify, but I wasn't necessarily expecting that feature to be included in the instructions or advertised in set pictures.

My best tips is to attach the tile to a square or rectangular plate (so that it's easier to judge the alignment), and to get a feel for the typical margins of stickers on those sorts of parts. It may seem trite, but practice definitely helps. I've gotten a ton of practice with stickering 2x2 round tiles thanks to the Elves sets, which commonly use those for signage.

The inclusion of the shark seems to me like one of those things that'd be mainly for kids... a shark presents a more concrete threat than getting stranded, since the boat can't actually "sink" and drowning or starvation are both much more abstract threats. I know as a kid I'd have found a scene of a shipwreck much more compelling and urgent if it were in shark-infested waters.

I don't remember all the details of the list but three store exclusives would make sense, given that particularly in the U.S. exclusives for major themes (which the Lego Ninjago Movie definitely is) tend to be split between three major retailers (Toys R Us, Target, and Wal-Mart).

The temple first appears in Season 5 (Possession) in episode 48 (The Temple on Haunted Hill). In that episode, the ninja go to the haunted Temple of Airjitzu to recover a scroll that can teach them the lost art invented by Sensei Yang. They manage to escape the temple with the scroll, but Cole falls victim to the temple's curse and becomes a ghost. The temple appears briefly in Season 6 (Skybound) but doesn't have any other major appearances until the one-hour "Day of the Departed" special, which focuses on Cole returning to the temple to settle his score with Sensei Yang. After the events of this episode, Cole is returned to his human form and Yang's curse on the temple is lifted, allowing the Ninja to use it as a new headquarters.

Fancy! I love the colors—it looks almost like a 2x4-shaped globe!

Maybe, though I was under the impression that most Technic parts are polycarbonate (the material used for transparent parts) whether they're transparent or not. Don't know whether that'd be the case with these.

These designs are incredible! I wish I were half as talented as you at digital illustration so that I could attempt to created designs as good as this.

Unfortunately, it seems a little broken... the links for the new characters are broken, and the corn cob guy is listed as "Corn Cub guy".

Not related to an app game. That image is advertising the 3D catalog app that can be used to view 3D models of the sets by scanning certain icons in certain catalogs (presumably including this one). I also don't know if the lack of a watermark on this specific image really provides a strong case for posting the image here. No offense, but it still DOES come from a confidential catalog...

Well, I probably won't get either of these since I'm not a big Super Heroes collector, but personally I love the design of that ship and the arena isn't half-bad either (though I wish it had more play features besides the falling columns). No idea what the people who describe them as "belonging in Juniors" are on—these are a great deal more complex and interesting than anything that theme could provide.

Okay, but something I've been wondering... won't that make it technically contain FOUR? Since trophy figs are small enough to normally be included as extras... I sort of expect to see at least one person question that once the set is out, since the reason why extra parts are included in sets still isn't super well-known, especially outside AFOL circles.

Hence why, as I said earlier in the topic, there's no indication that biodegradable bricks are even what Lego is looking for. Most people jump to that conclusion when they read this news, even though there are plenty of other, more practical ways to make Lego "greener", most of which relate to the supply chain. Lego has already made a number of changes in that process (making boxes smaller so that more sets can be shipped with less environmental impact, using more cardboard and less plastic in packaging that is more likely than the set itself to be disposed of, increasing the use of renewable energy in their factories and other facilities, and financing environmental projects to offset their carbon footprint). But until Lego can do something about their reliance on fossil fuels as a raw material for the bricks themselves, that leaves a hard limit on how much they can reduce their environmental impact. That's a big part of why they are investing in the search for alternatives. Probably not the only reason—there are plenty of other, less selfless reasons to lessen reliance on oil, such as the inevitable scarcity of fossil fuels and the tendency for oil prices to become less stable when conflict arises in major oil-producing countries. But biodegradability probably isn't high on the list of why Lego is researching alternative materials.

Again, I'd hesitate to chalk it up to a huge difference in culture (even business culture). Many western businesses would probably be just as quick to employ this sort of theft if they could get away with it (as evidenced by the fact that many did so, back when they could). The difference is that most Western countries have a robust system of law that has been built up over generations to protect intellectual property rights (some people might argue that in some cases these protections are TOO strong). China's IP laws are comparatively weak and they have been slow to bring them up to the standards of much of the rest of the world (either through internal reforms or international treaties. And even the laws that do apply can easily be subverted by bribery and corruption within a large government that struggles with bureaucracy. But even then, there are a range of Chinese businesses ranging from fly-by-night bootleggers to more ethically responsible businesses. And the latter are the ones that generally find greater success in partnerships with Western companies. That's a large part of why I'm generally critical of demands that Lego should withdraw entirely from China and cease production there—I see a company like Lego, which has a great track record for quality, originality, and the treatment of their employees, as a positive force in a country like China in which there are still plenty of businesses that have much more lax labor standards. They can positively affect both individuals (by offering better employment than competitors) and the country's standards as a whole (since by gaining influence in the area Lego can potentially have more success over bootleggers in the legal system, and by demonstrating the success that can come with higher labor standards they can set an example for other businesses). This doesn't mean that Lego can do no wrong. If I read an article tomorrow about labor abuses in Lego's Chinese facilities, I would be outraged. But so far I've seen no such thing. Most claims that Lego should leave China rest on quality defects, which tends to strike me as impatient (since Lego has already resolved plenty of quality issues as they became apparent), petty (since most of the defects that are brought up are incredibly minor in the grand scheme of things), and selfish (since it ignores the aforementioned positive effects Lego's presence in China can bring merely to satisfy comparatively privileged fans in the Western world).

I started trying to build this on LDD and while I can't be totally sure without pics of the interior build, I think the rotating base is built on the quarter circle pieces introduced in last year's Technic Bucket Wheel Excavator. That'd mark the first use of those parts since that set. It really is a huge improvement over the original Grand Carousel!

Kind of surprising that this seems to reuse the crown from the "King Pig" in the Angry Birds theme. That's the kind of part that I might otherwise have presumed to be IP locked. Altogether this set looks great, and I can't wait to get further details.

I saw a selection of minifigure parts like what you're describing in Billund a few years ago, and don't remember seeing anything like it when I had visited Legoland Florida a few years before that. But someone who has been to one of the U.S. parks more recently can probably give you a better answer.

Again, these efforts are to produce sustainably SOURCED parts—it has nothing to do with making the parts themselves biodegrade. Lego is being quite smart to look at alternatives to petroleum-based products, not just for the sake of the environment but also so that they have a fallback plan if oil becomes too scarce or expensive to continue relying on. It's good to see that Lego is already making good progress toward this goal!

Maybe, but even Friends uses realistic skin tones instead of yellow (which gives me the impression that like the mini-doll itself, the use of realistic skin tones in mini-doll themes was a result of the "yellow" figures testing worse with girls). Additionally, considering a good portion of elf hairpieces with pointed ears from other themes come from the Lord of the Rings theme (that also uses fleshies), and that other mini-doll themes all also use more realistic skin tones, Elves as a theme would conversely be LESS compatible with parts from other themes if it used yellow figures, since creating custom Elves figures would become that much harder if you couldn't use figure parts from the aforementioned themes.

I don't see why Nexo Knights would prevent either pirates or western in the first place (if anything, I'd think that having a non-traditional "castle theme" like Nexo Knights would be an opportunity to offer a less common historic theme like Western a chance alongside it). In any case, Mark Stafford posted on Brickset that at the very least the rumor they reported (that Nexo Knights was ending AND the final wave of sets would not be released) was false. That doesn't necessarily rule out the theme ending after this year or even partway through next year, but it does show that the unsourced claim in Blocks magazine was false.