Lyichir

I think it looks great. LEGO did their best to cram as many details into the set without pricing it unattainably high. Also, from the looks of it its construction is simple enough to be made modular: with more than one of the set and some modifications, you could easily make it into the Garage you were hoping for.

It's looking like it'll be a store exclusive, so I'm fairly certain it'll be on LEGO.com as well. The only sets I can think of that show up in stores but not on LEGO.com are promotional sets designed to be exclusive to a certain location, like 3300000 The Brick Apple. And "The Zombies" doesn't fit the mold for that kind of set.

Yeah, Bricklink doesn't mention it because it actually never appeared in the Lloyd booster pack (even though all the official pics show it). I suppose it'll probably show up in some of the later sets, but I am surprised to see it in a non-Ninjago set (in a new color, no less!).

It looks to me like a recording studio. Note the glass-windowed recording booth and the gold records on the walls.

I actually prefer the new greys, and I DEFINITELY prefer the new silvers, which include a new "pearl dark grey" (god I hate Bricklink color names). The new version of that color is darker and "steelier", not to mention more consistent. And the new silver (the one with colored plastic, not chromed or lacquered) also tends to look more like actual metal. Unfortunately, it seems they haven't been including these colors as much in Technic lately, although there's still an abundance of them in System and Hero Factory.

I honestly doubt it. While more Pixar-based lines would be amazing, it seems Disney's sticking to licensing out only their most reliable merchandise movers. Thus we get Toy Story and Cars, but no Wall-E and probably no Brave as well. Maybe we'll get Monsters Inc. sets next year to tie in with the upcoming prequel. But to be fair, I don't know how well Brave would work as a LEGO theme, anyway. The movie, from what little I've seen of it, has a very distinct art style that might be hard to adapt to classic cylinder-headed minifigs. It's probably no coincidence that the Disney licenses we've gotten so far either are live action, or stick mostly to non-human characters (with the exception of the Duplo Princesses).

Actually, I saw a display used like this for Hero Factory as early as last year. It showed Witch Doctor emitting an energy blast from his staff, and Rocka deflecting it with some sort of energy shield. Needless to say, it was pretty sweet. I wouldn't be surprised if retailers like Toys R Us, which have displays like these, reskinned them and used them for this year's Star Wars sets. If that's the case, I have no doubt that they'll be reused again, possibly for other themes.

That was in 2002, and in Racers, where a lot of weird things were being done. I think LEGO's learned better since then, as evidenced by the streamlining and paring down of the color palette and variety of elements.

I love the clever use of the Waspix head piece to form the forehead and ears. The torso could maybe use a bit of work, but I understand that you were limited in terms of yellow parts, so all is forgiven.

Just as hilarious as the other LEGO City mini-movies. I especially liked the 8-bit video game segment.

The parts fabricated in China are usually ones which have specialized printing only available at the Chinese plant. So you can't really complain about the standards for printing on parts like that helmet, since that part could not have been printed at all at any other plant. I imagine part of the reason for this has to do with human labor being required at some stage of production, such as for aligning the part in the printing machine before it is printed: hence why it is done in China, where labor is cheaper, and why there are inconsistencies in the printing, because of slight variance in how the part is aligned when printed.

I think the opposite is true. As long as the projects remain open, they attract outside users who may stick around to support other projects. If LEGO shuts them down early, that hype is lost. Not to mention that if they started shutting them down before they reached the threshhold, LEGO would begin to be expected to do so. The 10,000 supporter goal would lose a lot of its meaning if so many projects started being axed prematurely. With Serenity, the early decision was made due to brand standards, which were then codified and made public. The only way projects like MLP which may be unlicensable should be axed before the limit is if a similar path is taken, and some method of ensuring that these projects are not started in the first place is codified into the site guidelines. That way the Cuusoo staff can reduce the uncertainty of submitting a new project, and moreover can have ample justification to preempt the normal pattern of reviewing only at 10,000 supporters.

The pearl gold issue was a unique one, since LEGO was aware of the issue soon after it happened, but was forced to ship the imperfect sets for fear of disappointing retailers who expected them by a certain date, and potentially losing them as customers. This headpiece is an issue, but not as big of an issue, so I'm not even sure if this will be changed later on down the line.

Keep in mind that like with many factory leaks, the pic we saw may not be assembled correctly. It could be that it was assembled wrong, using plain blue legs instead of the proper ones. If that's the case, the finalized one could easily have differently colored hips, or even printed legs.

Hasbro doesn't even produce Kre-O. It is itself a licensing deal with Oxford bricks, a Korean clone brand. I understand that they would have many reasons to favor doing business with a smaller, less competitive outfit; All I'm saying is that they have shown willingness to license out their property in the past. Most of what you said is correct, but keep in mind that Hasbro has essentially zero marketing info or data, save for the number of supporters. They can't ape the actual designs for fear of getting into legal trouble, and LEGO has a lot more data than just the support level; they have how much each supporter would be willing to pay, how much they would buy, and more. Moreover, Hasbro has no idea what percentage of the supporters of that project would be fine with lesser-quality products, and how many consider the LEGO aspect of the proposal as important as the Pony side of it, if not more so. And if it fails, what happens then? There's a lot that could result even from a rejection. For pony fans, Hasbro could see the demand and produce Kre-O sets, which would at least satisfy those fans who are less concerned about quality. For LEGO fans, Cuusoo will have gained an important precedent in showing the limits of the system. If this project is rejected it will be the first to do so due to an inability to license, unlike the other two rejected proposals, which were rejected for content. As a pony fan I'll be disappointed if this project fails. But as a LEGO fan, I'll be watching intensely. In its beta stages, Cuusoo's regulations are subject to changes based on experience gained from projects which reach the support limit, whether they succeed or fail. Many have postulated a submission rule that would prevent projects based on properties which can't be licensed. I personally think such a restriction would be overly vague and would stifle creativity. But if LEGO sees fit to add such a restriction, I'll be intrigued as to what form it will take. The best idea I've come up with is a sort of "blacklist" that lists each company LEGO fails to license with, but the very idea of that has some very negative connotations LEGO may wish to avoid. But anything less explicit could result in uncertainty in user proposals. After all, users are not always privy to what goes on behind the scenes at LEGO. And if proposals start being eliminated for no discernible reason, it could undermine trust in the system. I see the best solution to be for them to do what they're doing now: letting projects gather support, and accepting or rejecting them only at the review stage. That way, if a project that normally wouldn't have a chance reaches the support threshhold when all the stars are aligned, LEGO could facilitate the occasional miracle.

There's probably a simple reason for that. Those one-off colors often occur in high-visibility locations, and function as important details. This is the case with those treads on the Ninjago model, as well as many BIONICLE and Hero Factory sets. Meanwhile, the piece you posted is a tiny piece used more frequently as a structural element than as a visual detail. And since most models won't have it highly visible, it's easy for models which do have a lot of yellow to cut costs by including that piece in an existing neutral color like black or grey, increasing the budget for larger, more visible parts to appear in new colors. So there is a method to their madness after all.

They probably didn't want to include a skyscraper because it would clash with the aesthetic of every other set this year. In the show, it's easy to picture a skyscraper in the Ninjago universe, but in the sets, where only a portion of that universe can be depicted, they want to keep everything looking cohesive. Personally, I thought the Devourer's tendency in the show to stick closer to the ground made it look less menacing and more pathetic, so I for one am happy with the set version. Also, ball joints, believe it or not, are not the strongest connection by a long shot. And the Devourer seems a lot bulkier than the Pharaoh's Quest cobra, meaning it has that much more weight to support. One thing I would like to try once I have the set is to see if ball joints would be able to support its weight if you used the high-friction ball-cup extenders used this year in the Ultrabuild Superheroes sets and the larger Hero Factory sets. But in general, ball joints sacrifice stability for poseability. And the more joints you have supporting the weight of the model, the more likely it is that one of them will fail and the snake will collapse. None of the dragon sets look like they do in the show. And frankly, I like the one in the set better: it's more unique and "epic" than the one in the show, which just looks like the other dragons but with four heads. The set, on the other hand, has a much grander wingspan. And the wings flap! I can't judge how well this works since I don't have the set yet, but from a video I saw from one of the Toy Fairs, this function along with the swinging tail make the dragon's movements look quite natural when it is "flying". And why did you expect the necks to be white? This sounds way too picky to me. LEGO deliberately limits how many elements it has in production at any given time, so if they had made the not-very-visible necks white, they may have had to compensate by eliminating the luscious trans-green highlights the dragon has on its wings and tail. Since the heads mostly cover up the necks anyway, I don't see why there's anything wrong with having them in an easy-to-ignore dark neutral color.

I see it more like Batman and Spiderman appearing in a crossover comic. After all, it's not like LEGO would be taking over production of My Little Pony toys in general; they'd just be producing building toys based on the franchise. Perhaps LEGO could even the stakes by making a deal with Hasbro so that Hasbro in turn would get to produce some non-brick-based LEGO products (like the minifigure plushes or key lights, for example) that LEGO usually contracts out to a smaller company. Is the success of this project unlikely? Yes. But there's no reason to nip that project in the bud before LEGO has gone into talks with Hasbro. The whole idea of Cuusoo is to take fan suggestions for products that might not be made otherwise. Creating an arbitrary list of "companies LEGO will not work with" would run counter to those goals. Cuusoo users can self-enforce these kinds of rules: if this project fails, the users will be able to use it as an example and will be less willing to support projects of properties owned by Hasbro in the future. With Cuusoo in its beta stages, each project that succeeds or fails creates a precedent that will influence future projects.

Good idea! I don't know whether this helps, but when my family sorts parts in our everlasting quest to clean up the basement, we stack identical pieces together. This keeps the parts together as we gather them, and makes them take up less space when we finally get them put away. For parts that don't stack, like tiles or most Technic parts, we often use egg cartons to collect the pieces and put them away when each segment gets too full.

That's one of the things I've loved about the Batman license since it debuted. Unlike movie tie-in licenses, it creates a new depiction of the iconic vehicles, objects and locations that is suited to the LEGO brand. Even the tie-in sets with The Dark Knight weren't explicitly depicting events from that movie, but rather featured the vehicles from that movie in new, unique situations. I'm hoping that the Legend of Zelda Cuusoo project's final form, if it does make it as a set, can do something similar, drawing from various Zelda icons instead of resembling any one game in particular. For this reason, I'm also a little disappointed with the Marvel sets. The only sets we've seen are based specifically on The Avengers and the new Spider-Man cartoon (except for the X-Men set, which is one of my favorites of the bunch). I was hoping they'd go the D.C. route and make sets based generally on the Marvel mythology instead of on any one movie or show.

Great review, save for one thing. Your photos all have wonky colors; the reds look like pinks, and a few of the other colors are slightly off as well. I'm going to try to see if I can make a good modular-scale store by doubling the size of this set.

Every review I've read of the PQ Cobra set pointed out how hard it was to pose the cobra "rearing up" without propping it up against the included obelisk. The reason the Great Devourer is less poseable is probably so that it can better maintain this intimidating pose.

I have no issue with custom LEGO parts being used in MOCs. That said, I never use such molds myself, largely because most of the ones I've ever received are grab bags of oddly-colored weapons I got as freebies at conventions. And I always appreciate a creative use of an official part over a non-official custom. And finally, I dislike some custom parts because they seem almost too high in detail compared to official parts. That's why I tend to prefer Brickforge over Brickarms, since Brickforge makes a determined effort to make sure all of their molds are visually compatible with official LEGO.

I hope it doesn't use "little people". I really appreciate how Ninjago, unlike Exo-Force, uses minifigs for any depictions of its characters across all media.

Meh... this doesn't impress me that much after the epic Castle Giant Chess Set released back in 2008.