Lyichir

I feel that would be LEGO shooting themselves in the foot. Licenses have been one of the main things driving traffic to Cuusoo. True, most of the projects that have succeeded have done so on the basis of their licenses. But eliminating that would simply cause fewer projects to succeed whatsoever. For reference, the Modular Western Town, the most successful project to be 100% original, has only gotten 3/4 of the way to 10,000 so far. Subtract the number of users who joined to support a license but stuck around and supported that project, and I'd reckon you'd have even less. Never mind the fact that licensing doesn't necessarily mean a lack of imagination. How different are projects based on real landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and projects based on icons from the silver screen like the Back to the Future Delorean Time Machine, when it all comes down to it? Imagination is not just about concepts, but how those concepts are executed. Personally I think the licensed projects which have had the most success (like the Winchester or the BttF Delorean) are extremely creative and well-made.

I'm still not totally excited about the new box graphics for the second half of the year. The picture of Lloyd ZX lacks the iconic simplicity of the "ninja eyes" pattern used for last year and the first half of this year. Moreover, it calls to mind the unappealing, cheaper-looking redesign of the Exo-Force character art in its third and final year. The sets themselves look great with the possible exception of the Bite Cycle, which fails to do anything new with its design, and lacks the finesse of the larger snake vehicles.

I'm pretty sure the demand for the Market Street is greater in today's aftermarket than it ever was while LEGO themselves were selling it. And even then, that's a market of primarily AFOLs. In comparison, the Winchester had trouble getting enough support until a large number of non-AFOLs flocked to support the project. Shaun of the Dead fans might not spring at the model if it doesn't have the same film connection, and in fact might boycott the set out of righteous indignation that the model has been "sanitized".

To an AFOL a simple name change might seem trivial, but as we saw, a large number of the votes came from non-AFOLs who were fans of the source material. Changing the name could turn these people off from purchasing the set, which means that the 10,000 supports would be more like 5,000, if not less. LEGO couldn't risk making a move that would cut demand for the set so drastically. I wonder if some way of regulating content will be worked into the Cuusoo guidelines now. Cuusoo is still in a beta stage, after all, and this is a learning experience. But it could be hard to regulate; different countries have different rating systems, and different types of mature content could be more or less acceptable than others.

I love how any time someone suggests something is "cheaper looking", people rush to blame it on Chinese production. I'm starting to believe this stereotype is never going to die, no matter how much contrasting evidence is presented.

I can tell you a perfectly good reason why that would be bad: the yellow minifig is meant to be racially neutral. Only once did LEGO throw a dark-skinned minifig into a set with mostly yellow-skinned figs, and that was the original Cloud City set. Before long they introduced fleshies, so that the yellow-skinned figs could remain racially neutral while licensed figs could closer represent the actors they portray. Making a black-skinned fig in a non-licensed theme would be equivalent to undoing that progress, and would send the message that "yellow-skinned figs are good enough for all our other themes, but since this is a witch doctor he has to be black." Never mind that the pop-culture "witch doctor" is somewhat of a negative stereotype in itself. Believe it or not, voodoo (or "vodou", or "vodun") is a genuine religion originating from Africa and the Caribbean, and in the U.S. during the time of slavery, exotic religions like this were used as evidence that Africans were by nature savages who prayed to demonic gods. In reality, voodoo is usually a fairly mundane, if bizarre, religion, with fairly harmless rituals. But it has been caricatured into a death cult in part due to its racial history. That's not to say that the caricatured version has no place in a theme based largely on horror movie tropes. But approaching it with a "feathers and tiki masks" appearance, which has more to do with general savage stereotypes than with actual voodoo, is a bad idea. Give him a polished, cultured appearance like the main antagonist of Disney's "The Princess and the Frog", and you can have your voodoo witch doctor without insulting blacks in general.

I think another part of it is that you see a lot more success if celebrities back them. In all previous cases it's been the creators of the property the proposal is based on. But I think if, say, David Beckham voiced his support of even a generic soccer/football stadium on a prominent public forum (such as a talk show, etc.), it would see support surge. The most important thing seems not to be that it is based on a licensed property, but that the general, non-AFOL public becomes aware of it. Of course, the easiest way this can happen, and the one we have witnessed repeatedly, involves existing non-LEGO fanbases flocking to support a LEGO proposal based on the subject of their fandom.

Exactly. LEGO is a business, and it's not their job to effect social change. LEGO is already taking a gamble on this theme, given how poorly their previous girl offerings have been. If they eliminated the "girly" roles in sets in favor of more gender-neutral roles, I'm pretty sure they'd lose more customers than they gain. As it is, LEGO is trying to sell building toys to the people who haven't bought them in the past: namely, the girly-girls who traditionally stick to only the products in the "pink aisle". And it's hard to get the message that "it's okay for girls to build" out there if they're making a product that looks nothing like the products those girls are already buying. In other words, the message is meaningless if it doesn't reach its intended audience. LEGO is doing the right thing with this theme: taking baby steps in the direction of gender equality.

The site only serves to confirm how frickin' awesome this theme is going to be. At the very least, the Vampire Castle is a shoo-in for my Christmas list this year.

Well, it's still at best 3/4 of the way through April, so I'm not surprised we don't have pics yet.

I think Paralympic figs would be too much to hope for. All the figs we've seen so far, if they are indeed real, are essentially recolors of other CMFs. For Paralympics, they would need brand new molds for things like wheelchairs. If that picture we've seen is legit, then I would assume that it does in fact show the full range of Olympic figures.

Those pictures were awesome. I wish I could get some of those pictures in high quality without words around them, so that they could be used on The Ninjago Wiki. I also wish that book would come out in English, but since it seems to be based around the first year of sets and story, I figure that's never going to happen.

That's an especially nice offer considering it's very possible that the shield was bent through no fault of LEGO. I wouldn't be surprised if it was due to someone feeling the packets too roughly, or the packet being stepped on by a customer and then returned to the rack. I know I'd definitely appreciate such an offer, especially seeing as you could pick a minifig only available in larger, more expensive sets!

I kind of wish it were longer. Those segments which had the sets animated were epic! Come to think of it, I haven't seen any Brickfilms using the Hero Factory building system, which is unusual considering how good these sets look in motion.

Whoa! I wasn't expecting to see this so early. I don't know much Spanish; does the video description tell anything about the source for these videos? I wouldn't be surprised if they're leaked, considering the NRG Ninja aren't due out for at least another two months.

I imagine cube-shaped parts could be harder to disassemble. The extra height of bricks increases the amount of "leverage" you have when snapping bricks apart. With cubic bricks, disassembling any model might be more like disassembling a model made entirely of plates, which as any AFOL knows can be hell without a brick separator.

I typically do them in the order the bags specify. A neat side effect of this is that if I do take sets apart for MOCing (as I would often do while up at college), the later reassembly of these sets takes the form of a more "advanced" build that lessens the tedium of building a set for the second time.

LOL, that's just what I was thinking. Truth be told I didn't know quite what to expect from this model before pics showed up, because I'm more familiar with Snoopy's doghouse than I am with the actual plane!

I think another problem with the ATLA theme is that the show is heavily martial-arts based. This is hard to adapt to LEGO, as can be seen in the fairly unconvincing bending from the original sets. Ninjago got around this by inventing "Spinjitzu" as a way for kids to recreate battles. This isn't a deal-breaker, of course, since especially in finales and other major battles in the series there were plenty of vehicles which would make great sets, but unfortunately the original theme eschewed most of these epic battles (apart from an unconvincing depiction of the battle for the Northern Air Temple). While people are right to say that the show has a huge fanbase, it's also true that it has little exposure currently. When ATLA does air, it does so on the Nicktoons network that is not part of most standard cable packages. And don't forget that Nickelodeon has done a piss-poor job of merchandising the series: any fans remember the outrage over Katara not receiving an action figure? I wouldn't be surprised if some of the faults of the original sets were due to conditions of the licensing arrangement, probably giving priority to the Spongebob line. Korra looks like it might continue down this line; has their been any news whatsoever regarding toy tie-ins to the series? Would Legend of Korra provide an opportunity for LEGO to give the series another go? Possibly, but the fact that we haven't heard anything suggests this might be a pipe dream. I had thought that the live-action movie might increase the show's exposure, and we all saw how that turned out. I think any continuation of the theme may have to be done as MOCs by fans. LEGO and Nickelodeon flubbed their first attempt at an ATLA theme, and I don't think they're likely to give it another go.

I think the slopes work better than the windscreen, actually. The windscreen isn't nearly wide enough for a shuttle that size.

A set like Jabba's Prize is unlikely, considering the "Han Solo in carbonite" piece is actually in the Jabba's Palace set. A Rancor cave would be more likely, but it'd be tricky to make one that sits comfortably beneath the palace while still having enough headroom for the rancor. A large portion of it might as a result be a featureless rock wall, which LEGO seems averse to putting in sets.

The older horse takes some pulling to get apart, but it does not need to be glued to fit back together. The question is more whether the new horse's neck attaches the same way, and whether it can be pulled apart at all (the rear legs being joined together certainly might make it infeasible).

To be fair, the actual scenes in Jabba's Palace tended to be fairly crowded, with many characters. So personally I think the number of figs in the set is appropriate, and of course it's helped by significant figs being split between this set and the skiff.

It's an interesting question. On the one hand, the original sets failed for a number of reasons that may not apply now: the sets were produced before the show's peak, and before the current "golden age of licensed themes" where great pains are taken to preserve accuracy. But there's one factor that still applies: ATLA has never been much of a merchandise mover. Fans of ATLA are generally more likely to custom-make trinkets and doodads related to the show than to amass a collection of officially-licensed merchandise. I personally would love the theme to return, having missed out on the somewhat sub-par sets from the initial release. But I'm not sure such a theme would be sustainable, and it could easily fade away just as quickly as it did back in 2006.

A thought occurred to me. The classic horse can be disassembled with a little bit of effort, taking it apart into both halves of its body and its head. If the new horse can be disassembled similarly, and if its head attaches in the same way, then it may be possible to put parts of both together into a "Frankenhorse" which has poseable legs but also can wear the old headgear pieces. That said, I'm quite happy with the look of the new horse, and the fact that it can't wear old headgear pieces doesn't faze me since I'm no army builder. Long before pictures of this new horse surfaced, I was of the opinion that a new one was needed. As it was, the horses could not stand in any sort of action pose, and had a single point of articulation, as opposed to the seven points of articulation on minifigures. The new one has just one more articulation point, yet this alone works wonders for its poseability.