Lyichir

Where in my post did I say using tactical vest pieces would be expensive? I only a) pointed out that they don't need to make a new piece for it, since a suitable piece exists, and b) explained how they probably had good reasons not to include such pieces, unrelated to price. Personally, I'm glad the vest is printed, since I think the way the vest piece raises up the head without covering the shoulders looks fairly ugly, and doesn't work well without at least a large helmet like the Power Miners had in their second year. Regarding price, I think the museum set will be a good value for its cost. We don't know the prices of any of these sets yet, but the set seems to feature a lot for what doesn't look more expensive than $80. A museum facade, two decent-sized vans, and a helicopter? I'm on board for that. Yeah, the museum building itself is small, but it's Lego, and as such it looks like it'd be easy to mod to make it bigger.

Dang. I'd tried making the mecha tank on LDD and never got it to work the way I wanted. But yours looks fantastic! Well done!

Is that sarcasm? Your existing collection is worth exactly as much as it was before these sets were revealed.

What's wrong with printing one? A tactical vest doesn't sit any farther off the chest than a firefighter's jacket. Should those be a new piece, too? Besides, it's not a matter of cheapness: after all, they already have body armor from the Agents and Power Miners themes which they could have used. But those screw with a minifigure's proportions due to raising up their head without obscuring how low their shoulders are, and I wouldn't be surprised if focus testing showed that kids preferred the printed version. As for the price of the museum set, keep in mind it includes not just the museum, but three vehicles. You can certainly complain about the overabundance of vehicles in City (although that, again, probably has more to do with kids' preferences), but I'm sure that set has a value appropriate to its size. Your quality argument has nothing to do with anything we've seen in these pictures, so its ridiculous to even bring it up. Personally, I'm quite fond of the City sets for next year. For one thing, they seem to be much more situation-based than those of previous years. The cops have a greater variety of crimes to stop! The firemen have to deal with a range of issues, from cats stuck in trees to full-on house fires! In terms of quality I don't find them particularly superior to the sets of previous years, but in terms of presentation they far surpass what has gone before.

So Chase McCain seems to be appearing in next year's City sets instead of being a preorder exclusive. Maybe they got the facts wrong on which fig would be available for preorders? I've seen at least some sources claim that Rex Fury is the exclusive fig instead. I wish we had better information on this. I'm not planning on getting a Wii U yet, so if the preorder-exclusive fig is also available for preorders of the 3DS version I won't hesitate to get that. If it is exclusive to the Wii U version, I may preorder that if only because I intend to get the system at some point down the line, and can have the game ready for when that happens. But if the fig isn't actually exclusive, I may not preorder at all. :/

That second definition of cyborg would make a lot of sense for XT-4, particularly because it would allow for him to be the more primal, less sentient hunter I like to imagine him as. Perhaps rather than having a highly sophisticated electronic brain like most of the heroes and villains, XT-4 has a less-complex organic brain, maybe belonging originally to some sort of predatory species.

(Modified from my post in the Legend of Chima topic, so I don't have to reword everything that's applicable to both) I think it's a bit early to even assume that this is a new theme, let alone that it belongs in the action themes section. If it is a theme, it could be any type of theme, be it a Technic theme, a Racers-like generic vehicle theme, or even an action figure theme. But it could just as easily not be a theme at all, and instead be a game or movie, like Life of George or Clutch Powers. In fact, it's far too early to even assume that whatever "Speedorz" is will in fact be released in 2013, since we haven't seen anything about this besides that Lego has trademarked the name. It could be due in 2014 or later, for all we know.

I think it's a bit early to even assume that this is a new theme, let alone that it belongs in the historic themes section. If it is a theme, it could be any type of theme, be it an action theme, a historic theme, or even an action figure theme. But it could just as easily not be a theme at all, and instead be a game or movie, like Life of George or Clutch Powers. In fact, it's far too early to even assume that whatever "Legend of Chima" is will in fact be released in 2013, since we haven't seen anything about this besides that Lego has trademarked the name. It could be due in 2014 or later, for all we know.

Went to the Lego store during Brickfair last week. We must have gotten like eight of those cakes; all for one purchase! It seems like the manager we were conversing with was feeling generous!

Well, it's always possible that such an issue has appeared again. The best solution is for people afflicted by this issue to contact customer service. That way, not only will they get replacements, but Lego will become aware of the problem and be able to fix it faster.

The reason the name of the set is excluded from European boxes should be obvious. Most European countries get the same sets distributed among them, meaning that unlike in the U.S., there is no primary language to print the set name in. The name would have to be printed in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Finnish, Czech, and many more languages. Leaving off the name of the set on the front allows for a much cleaner-looking box cover. As for the piece count, I believe building toys in the U.S. are required by law to declare the number of parts on the packaging. Of course, that's no reason not to include this useful information on European boxes as well.

The real question is, do Nindroids dream of electric dragons?

That piece actually originated in Friends, for seating the Friends figures in vehicles since unlike Minifigures, they have no connection points on their butts. But it's interesting to see it used for other, minifigure-based themes. I don't have any sets with it, so I can't judge how well it works. But I'll be waiting patiently for reviews!

Very creative model! I absolutely love the use of the tail from the new Jabba figure. Unfortunately, it might not work that well in the Ninjago theme: it currently appears like we may see at least a few sets in the theme next year, and based on the pattern Ninjago has established, it's not unlikely that the ninja will be facing a brand new, non-Serpentine foe. And with the time it generally takes a Cuusoo project, especially an unlicensed one, to reach 10,000 supporters, as well as the fact that the current batch of sets being reviewed could create a backlog if more than one of them passes, I'm afraid that by the time a project such as this gets a shot at being produced, the Ninjago theme will have either moved past the Serpentine story arc or ended outright. As far as non-licensed proposals go, I would imagine ones based on an existing story theme would be one of the more difficult to produce with Cuusoo, for all of the above reasons.

Actually, that torso wasn't originally a wetsuit either. It first showed up as Squidtron's jacket in the most recent Space Police theme. In any case, I think it passes equally well as a jacket or wetsuit, so no harm, no foul. All in all the new set looks fantastic, and personally I can see how it would merit the higher price. I probably won't get it, just because I don't collect the Winter Village sets, but it seems to blow the earlier models out of the water!

I'm calling BS on this. It's not just that it's unlikely that Lego would switch back, considering they adopted bley for some very good reasons. On top of that, there's no way someone working at a plastics supplier would know this, even if that supplier did provide ABS for Lego, because Lego no longer uses pre-colored granulate for their parts. They have separately sourced uncolored ABS granulate and colored dye for Lego production for several years now. Therefore, there's no way the plastics supplier would be privy to any of Lego's color formulations. I can't tell whether this user is lying to get people's hopes up, or whether it's his alleged friend who's lying, and this user's just the middleman. But something smells fishy here, and it's not the seafood aisle.

I couldn't have said it better myself! Anyway, I loved the newest episode. While I felt the fight scenes were somewhat weak, and Captain Soto's accent seems to waver between Pirate, Asian, and American, Dareth made up for all the episode's flaws. He's that great as a sort of "wrong context ninja" like Franz Rayner from Dr. McNinja. Also, Sensei Wu remains awesome.

It's possible that next year's sets are still at an early stage of production, considering as late as June the North American Community Organizer for Lego still was working under the assumption that the theme would be ending this year. We did see some content at the panel for it, but it was largely focused on the now-ongoing season of the TV show, and prototypes from this year and last, rather than any upcoming sets. Having finally seen Pirates vs. Ninja, I can't help but also hope some of the content from this season of the TV series, including Dareth (who is hilarious), makes its way into next year's sets. I worry, though, that this season is more of a "filler" series in respect to the sets, and the characters will be no more likely to appear in sets than the grey Shadow Ninja from last year's book "Cole: Ninja of Earth".

Actually, what that looks like to me is that it fits under the similar opening segment on the front of Jabba's Palace (behind Jabba's platform).

Nickelodeon owning the rights may have made it easier for Lego to make sets based on the show, but they probably didn't see it as being practical to continue the theme. The movie had been just about the only thing keeping the franchise in the public consciousness, especially for the kids who were the theme's target audience. When that flopped, it meant that Speed Racer went largely to being what it had been before: a show admired primarily by adults who had lived through its original run, and a smaller, younger audience that appreciated the series for its retro charm. But for the kids who drag their parents to the Lego aisle, there was nothing especially appealing about the series (especially compared to modern, ongoing franchises like Spongebob or Harry Potter). So instead of continuing the theme, Lego dropped it. And then two years later they came up with World Racers, a theme in the same "sci-fi racing" genre, but without the licensing costs associated with the Speed Racer line.

That's surprising. I thought the Star Wars Miniland was indoors, which I would have expected to help the bricks stay "fresh" longer.

Lego's only doing this for the U.K. because they're the host country, and as such, the country where the Olympics will be getting the most hype. People attending the Olympics, even those from other countries, are likely to want souvenirs, which is what these figs are. People in the U.S. are less likely to want minifigures of a competing team, and it'd be impractical for Lego to produce a series of these for every participating country. However, if this theme is successful, Lego will probably continue to do these for future host countries, or even start doing these for the host countries of the Winter Olympics. If that happens, then a U.S. team would be made available whenever the U.S. hosts the Olympics again in the future.

Just for everyone's information: I wouldn't be surprised if this is the set Lego reveals next week at Brickfair in Washington, D.C. Last year they revealed the Winter Village Post Office there, and this year they claim that once again they'll reveal a "never-before-seen set." And unless they plan to reveal one of next year's sets (or they reveal something no one here so much as knew about), the only possibilities would be this set or one of the unseen Hobbit sets.

They do replace faded parts. Just not frequently enough. To the topic starter, which Legoland did you visit, out of curiosity? I went to the one in California ten years ago, but just last year I went to the one in Windsor. The most faded sculpture I saw there was the spider ride (I forget what it was called). And on that one, it was most noticeable due to the fact that there were two spiders. The spider which was on its own beside the ride had clearly been taken care of. But the giant spider which made up the bulk of the ride was quite faded.

This certainly sounds awesome. I don't personally have a VIP membership, but my dad does. Here's hoping good fortune smiles upon us!