Lyichir

While it's more likely to be a simple mistake in the part renders uploaded to customer service, is it possible that the recolored paintball legs are intended for a minifigure collection like the Halloween set with the recolored Zombie, or the Rock Band set with the recolored Rapper, Punk Rocker, and Rocker Girl?

I think you'd need a more concrete concept before I could see this as a theme. Lego themes need building and a story, not just culture. What would you build in a sub-Saharan Africa-based theme? Traditional cultures there rarely had impressive vehicles or structures, and modern African cities are pretty indistinguishable from those elsewhere in the world. Also, there would need to be a story, which could be problematic since historically Africa has been subjected to less-than-child-friendly treatment by other cultures, so a historical story is out. Perhaps you could create a fantasy or mythological story for the theme, but my knowledge of African mythologies is limited, and I'm not aware of any which would allow for a great deal of construction. As for skin tones, the non-yellow-skinned minifigures are exclusive to licensed themes, and I'd like them to stay that way. I'm sure a yellow-skinned Zulu warrior could be recognizable as such, although in the absence of a theme for them to fit into they might be best suited to the Collectible Minifigures. If you wanted a theme with realistic skintones even if it were licensed, you would need a license which both captured kids' imaginations and featured a fair treatment of African culture; these are regrettably a rarity, but that issue is less with Lego and more with Hollywood and associated peddlers of pop-culture.

It has to do with the design of the figs themselves. Lego minifigures have used the same general design for years, and that design (with its high-stress connections between arms and torsos) is not well suited to being molded out of polycarbonate. Another solution to the force ghost issue which I've considered is a single mold of the legs, torso, arms, waist, hands, and perhaps even the head. This would work for force ghosts (which never really have any action scenes which would require poseability), but would be less well-suited to other applications. But as a single mold, it would cost far less to produce than trying to redesign every part of a fig to facilitate molding in transparent.

It actually was out of production for some time, and was only put back into production for the Collectible Minifigures. And Lego has repeatedly stated that they can't replace parts from the CMFs. I doubt they have any in stock from pre-CMFs, so Bricklink is probably your best bet.

I can't help but wonder whether, in different colors and with different prints, some of those Friends animals could fit in with traditional figs. For instance, as you say that sea turtle is a bit too brightly colored and cartoony to fit into a PotC MOC. But what if, in a future set (perhaps a coast guard set or somesuch), Lego used the same turtle mold in a color like olive green or dark green, with standard Lego black bead eyes instead of the cartoony, slightly anime-esque eyes of the Friends animals? I don't think all of the Friends animals would work this way, but a number of them could, like the turtle, fawn or poodle.

The issue with that is and has always been that transparent parts have WAY more friction against each other than against standard parts. And that could pose a problem with the high-stress connection between, say, minifig arms and torsos. The transparent arm is a step in the right direction, but it in no way means a fully transparent minifig has surely become feasible. Now, it's possible that a partially transparent minifig could be made, but would that really work for a force ghost? I can't help but wonder. Part of me thinks that if the whole thing can't be transparent, having it completely opaque may be preferable; perhaps something akin to NRG Zane from Ninjago.

Keep in mind that this is a Nickelodeon license, and Lego's previous license with them, Lego Spongebob, had a fairly sporadic release schedule, typically with one wave per year (if that). I wouldn't count this theme out just yet.

They recently released their annual report, and connected to their profits is a point I noticed; that they have such great profits and success, in the midst of a hurting industry in a poor economy, while paying taxes at an effective rate of around 25%. Here in the U.S., politicians and corporations balk at the idea of raising the comparatively low tax rate on corporations for fear that it'll cripple them or provoke them into finding new ways to avoid taxation. But Lego serves as a pretty effective example of how a corporation can prosper and pay their fair share at the same time.

Tried to build what I could of 70007 Eglor's Twin Bike and discovered that it seems to use another new piece. It's like this one, but one brick shorter. Could be useful.

You can if the wheel was originally almost rectangular. Having owned the original, blocky, inaccurately-colored UCS X-Wing, I can easily see what a massive improvement this one represents. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's definitely a better likeness than the original. The most iconic ship in Star Wars deserved much better, and it looks like it's finally getting that.

Actually, the sword is not unique to this set in this color. At least 70115 Ultimate Speedor Tournament also contains it in this color, and it's also available currently despite not being inventoried on Bricklink.

It's actually somewhat more complex than that, from what I've heard from Lego employees. The parts which occur as extras are very light, and the weight checks that Lego puts sets through to make sure a set has the right number of pieces have enough of a margin of error that a set with one fewer of one of those parts could potentially be missed by the check and go on to be sold. By adding extras (typically one per bag for eligible parts), even if a set is missing one and the weight check does not catch the error, the set will still have the required number of parts to complete the model once it reaches the consumer. And of course that means that most people get extras of these easy-to-lose parts as a bonus.

I preferred the gameplay of the spinner game, but the Speedorz are definitely more fun to just mess around with.

Actually, I think $120 sounds exactly right for the Lion Chi Temple. Having built most of it on LDD, it's a fairly massive set; at least the same size as the Fire Temple (also $120), if not slightly bigger. And I haven't even built the mid-size croc vehicle that comes with it yet!

Black does seem to be a somewhat odd color choice, but the reasoning for a spare pair of legs seems obvious to me: they're so that the princess has the option of riding the horse (which she can't do with the skirt piece).

I recognize some of these from the book "The World of Lego Toys". I didn't realize that they were all made for a single exhibition, though.

There are two issues with that. One, the clockfigs are not compatible with regular system at all. Two, they aren't produced by Lego themselves, but rather by another company. Now, could Lego create new molds at the same scale? Possibly, but they're unlikely to; such a fig design would be massively expensive and probably couldn't be used in anything else (since few themes have a need for characters quite as big as Galactus). If there were ever a Galactus model in sets, I'd expect it to be either Hero Factory-based (less desirable due to the Hero Factory system sharing little in common with the minifigure, but possible since they're doing it with Chima) or largely brick-built (somewhat like the UCS Minifig from a decade ago, but possibly with some new molds for, say, the head, so as to allow for a minifigure-esque face).

The Daily Mail is notorious for sensationalist reporting. Nothing new here.

Decent review. Anyway, the head mold isn't new; it was also used for the Earth Dragon as well as the Earth-themed head of the Ultra Dragon. Lloyd's golden face represents a "powered up" state similar to the NRG ninja from last year. My main quibble with the set is that the wings do in fact have a significant difference from those of previous dragons, that being that when spread, the "hands" face inward, rather than forward. It looks a little odd, although it'll be easy enough to modify that problem away. I probably won't be getting this one, though; none of its minifigures are exclusive to this set, and my little brother's been having dragon envy ever since I got all four dragons the first year.

The only sets we've seen with the foxes and skunks are Speedorz sets. Of course, it's possible that those will serve as a "teaser" for next year's sets, which may feature more from those tribes, including larger sets.

How do the Speedorz work on it? It looks fantastic, but the surface seems uneven and rough, whereas from my experience, Speedorz work best on a smooth, flat surface. I'm not saying they won't work well on that, but if they do I'd be interested to know exactly how well they work.

Calling a print pattern (a.k.a. something that is irrelevant to the build of any set) xxxxxxized? I think you may be stretching the term a wee bit. Personally, I see nothing wrong with the new Lion emblem; if anything, it feels MORE Lego-ish than the one on the previous royal knight shield. I also feel that its simplified appearance makes it more similar to actual heraldry.

Speaking of inverted parts, I just got a glimpse of another new part. Look at the little bit of lower jaw in the croc vehicle in this picture. It appears to be a 1x4 inverse curved slope (like a 1x3 curved slope, but upside down with studs on top and with a 1x1 plate sticking off the center of the thicker end). Quite an interesting piece!

Nope. That's Sensei Wu's beard from the Ninjago line (which is still a nice piece to have in black).

So, having started to reverse-engineer the Lion Chi Temple on LDD, I think I'm in love. It's packed with detail and functions. Obviously there's the very neat bikes which launch from behind the waterfalls, and the hidden passages on each of the wings. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the retracting bridge and closing jaws of the temple are actually a single, linked function; that is to say, when the mouth closes the bridge retracts! I'm reminded of the amazing opening jaw/gate of the Portal of Atlantis. Besides the functions, the temple just plain looks amazing; the color scheme is surprisingly effective (primarily using Flame Yellowish Orange, Dark Stone Gray, and Medium Nougat), and the architecture calls to mind the amazingly unique structural details of the 2005 Battle of Metru Nui set. Not to mention the waterfalls and channels making up what is probably the coolest water feature in any Lego set, ever! This is definitely going on my Christmas list, if I can hold off on getting it until then!