Lyichir

Believe it or not, I can thank BIONICLE for carrying me through what would surely have otherwise been my "dark age". In my early teens I had started to drift away from LEGO toward more "serious" media like video games (understand that I'm referring to "serious" as how I perceived it then, not as what actually was or was not serious). Perhaps not coincidentally, this coincided with the "Town Jr." era. BIONICLE, with its multimedia storytelling and its mysterious, somewhat edgy storyline, held my attention up through the latter half of the decade. At that point, themes like Exo-Force and Knight's Kingdom II that used BIONICLE-like elements drew me back into System sets. If I hadn't had BIONICLE to carry me through this period, I may never have rediscovered my passion for LEGO. Now I'm back as a true AFOL, with hopes to work at LEGO as a product designer. I currently hope that modern themes like Ninjago and Hero Factory can help younger kids to maintain a love of LEGO the way BIONICLE did for me.

I don't think there is a "pattern" so much as that they adapt it based on what they want to do. Grand Emporium is a corner because it works well as one, not because one was "due". I'm sure if the next building is well-suited to a corner design they'll build it as such.

From what I can tell, it'll have both kinds of joints, like the mechs from the final year of Exo-Force. Click joints for the hips and knees (which need to support the most weight), but ball joints for the ankles (so that it always has both feet flat on the ground) and the arms (which only need to support their own weight, and the weight of the sword).

I wish there were a "no preference" option. I love LEGO's original castle themes, and was sad to see Kingdoms go. But at the same time I realize that the LotR sets are amazing, and feature some of the best castles ever featured in LEGO sets (for instance, I believe the Helm's Deep set is the first castle LEGO's done which has both outer and inner walls). And see a future where, like with the Star Wars and Space themes, a few years of LotR could help to improve the quality of their Castle sets when they start with original Castle themes again (and I have no doubt that they will, either when LotR ends or when it proves itself a success that is not threatened by other Castle themes alongside it).

It might be worth your while to double check and make sure the piece is in fact missing. I know from experience that glass pieces are easy to lose, seeing as the fact that they are both flat and clear means they can blend in on most any surface. Depending on where you built the set it may have slipped underneath something, or camouflaged on a floor or carpet.

Your Hagrid mention gave me the inspiration to explain why I like Hulk's fig as opposed to a fig who was just like a standard minifig but larger. Hagrid is closer to the latter, and his pose looks so plain compared to Hulk's; which works for a gentle giant like Hagrid, but not so much for a brawler like Hulk who ends up in many action scenes.

The "creator" actually created the Fire Brigade itself, I believe: he's a designer for LEGO who has worked on most of the modular buildings. This bell is probably from a prototype set. With the Town Hall, the "similarity" is that the Town Hall set reused these column designs. But I believe we knew that since before the set came out, with people speculating that it would be a reworking of this earlier Town Hall model of Jamie's. But really, I don't see how this warrants its own topic. What's there to discuss, other than how LEGO designers, surprise, use similar techniques in their MOCs to those in actual sets?

*cough* Dino. *cough* And I don't see how Summer Sets are inching closer to launch. The Avengers sets are not traditional Summer sets in that they're being released early to tie in to the movie. There's been no sign of summer sets for non-new themes like City and Ninjago, so I doubt we'll see Monster Fighters sets before July.

I've read that comment before. But this topic has never been about rereleasing sets. It's about redesigning old UCS sets; in other words, releasing an entirely new UCS Star Destroyer, X-Wing, Naboo Starfighter, etc. No one would argue that this year's X-Wing is a "rerelease" of the one from 1999. It's an entirely new model depicting the same thing.

What sort of book is this? A novel, comic, or reference guide? Is it from last year, or this year? And is the picture an ordinary illustration or CGI? I'm always interested in "region-exclusive" images and info.

I don't actually think that would work as well as what they did. For one thing, such a fig would convey a sense of size but not a sense of mass. The pose would be iffy too; the Hulk rarely stands straight as a pole, as minifigs tend to do; more often he stands in a battle-ready crouch. Finally, the scale would be hard to accommodate. A fig twice as wide as a standard minifig would also be twice as tall, whereas I believe Hulk in the Avengers movie is closer to 1.5 times as tall as his compnions. A double-size fig could be great in a fantasy theme as a giant (which typically have a similar physique to regular-sized people, but far bigger), but for the Hulk, not so much. I was a huge fan of the Castle giant trolls, and the Hulk seems even better and more minifig-like than they were.

Personally I like the unique fig mold for the Hulk. It ends up looking exactly like it should to me: a "hulked-out" minifig, retaining such features as the clip-like hands, cylindrical face, and squared-off feet. And I'm not really bothered by the lack of leg poseability. I don't know whether or not Thing would be best in a different scale or not, and I'm sure figures like Juggernaut shouldn't be, but for Hulk I think LEGO made the right choice.

I suppose, but then I'd have to cut the baseplates to fit, and it wouldn't come out looking nearly as polished as these storage units do. Not to mention that there are flaws in such a system: for instance, what do you do with a piece like the long antenna that would stick far off the drawer and pop off easily? What about parts that only attach from underneath a brick, like airplane wheels, or parts that can't attach to standard bricks at all, like Technic axles? In theory these storage units would be amazing, but in practice they're mainly suited to people whose collections consist largely of basic bricks.

Another point to make is that LEGO rejecting this project could delegitimize Cuusoo in the eyes of fans. This is only the second international project to reach the required number of supporters, so it would look better for them if they made this set, just to show how devoted they are to listening to what fans want. If they do reject it on the grounds that the subject matter is too adult, I expect that they will codify such a restriction into the Cuusoo rules so that no such project is voted in only to be rejected in the future. I've never seen Shaun of the Dead, but I've heard it's good. And I saw Scott Pilgrim, also by Edgar Wright, and loved that, so perhaps Shaun of the Dead needs to be next on my viewing list, especially if we may see a LEGO set in the future!

You were studying the staff in the show? Hate to break it to you, but I'm pretty sure none of the staffs in the show have the symbols on them. As for what his staff does, my best guess is that the anti-venom "cures" the Anacondrai's voracious appetite and makes them vomit up anyone they've eaten. Of course, none of that explains why between the five tribes there are only four fang blades.

Very cute! The T-rex is the best (and possibly only) one I've seen at that scale! As for the base itself, it evokes every aspect of the original set superbly.

See, I always assumed the "Ultimate" in Ultimate Collectors Series meant not that it was the only version of a ship they would ever make, but that it was the best, most accurate version of a model they would make. Going by that definition, the UCS X-Wing and TIE Interceptor are set to become less "ultimate", as the accuracy of the System sets begins to surpass that of these early models. The brand loyalty argument confuses me. If anything, I imagine that the redesign of older UCS sets might spoil the mood of speculators, but do you really think they'll stop buying these sets as a result? I don't, and whether or not they continue to buy sets is what matters to TLG. Besides, I reckon the classic UCS sets will remain valuable if they are redesigned. They're still massive sets, and rare ones, and sets that chronicle a specific period in TLG's history. Even if newer versions are released, the old ones remain the very first UCS sets, giving them a collectible status that none of the others have. As for whether or not we fall into a "cycle" of remakes like the standard-scale line has, I'm not arguing that TLG release a new UCS X-Wing every three or so years. But it's been over a decade since the UCS line debuted, and since those first sets LEGO has changed considerably, with the switch to bley, the introduction of such parts as curved slopes and cheese wedges, and more. Would it be a crime for TLG to release "updated" versions of these two ships, say, for the fifteenth anniversary of the UCS line? I think not. I understand some of the other, non-semantic arguments, like how redesigns of older UCS sets would require putting off releasing UCS versions of ships never-before-depicted in the UCS line. But I think this would be a worthwhile price to pay to see shiny new versions of these classic vehicles.

To me XT-4 looks rather spartan, but if he's a kid's MOC, he's made by a kid with a good sense of color organization and style. As it is, XT-4 strikes me as a robotic character with a weaker AI than that of heroes; perhaps a factory 'bot that ran amok and had to be locked up. His long, mostly shellless arms and legs give the feel of a robot designed with function being considered more than form. And of course, he'll be a desirable set in terms of parts if only due to his lovely new small torso. I like simple, clean-looking sets like Core Hunter as much as the next guy, but I also think there's room for sets like XT-4 that do something new with the building style instead of using an ordinary framework and armoring it differently.

Honestly that symbol looks more like the year 3 Alpha Team logo than the Insectoids crystal, and I'm confident that both similarities are a coincidence.

To be fair, the licensing in the Shinkai and Hayabusa projects went toward depicting models of actual, real-world vehicles, so the licensing in that case is more akin to that of the LEGO Architecture series or the Technic Unimog than to movie or TV licenses. With MOCs, one has to vote for something which has already been constructed as opposed to a concept, in most cases; and the MOCs that are proposed often would be far outside most people's budgets (for instance, if the modular western town were made a set as is it would probably cost upwards of $200). Still, I've noticed that support on Cuusoo has tended to be magnified on proposals for licensed themes, especially since the international beta.

For something you just threw together, this is really cute and definitely evokes the feel of those tractors. I'm disappointed that of all the LEGO Cars sets so far, there hasn't been one to depict this scene. I want to see a LEGO Frank!

I don't think that's an easter egg. If there were some significance story- or set-wise to the Omega symbol I'd say it was, but otherwise there's no way of confirming whether it's meant as anything more than a decorative pattern.

I haven't tried personally, but seeing as both parts are fitted to the thinner katana piece I doubt the classic short sword would fit. Somewhat off topic: early reports of that Ninjago shoulder armor piece suggested that a technic pin could fit in the "hole" in the back. This is not actually the case, but I can confirm that the underside of parts like 1x1 round plates DO fit, even if it may slightly stress the piece. The "ridge" on the bottom fits into the shoulder armor almost like it does in the classic minifig goblet piece.

Last year at Brickfair one of the designers who works on the Collectable Minifigs confirmed that "Kel" was the name of a Canadian friend of his. So it's likely that the other names come from somewhere, but it's not necessarily limited to LEGO employees.

This is just incredibly awesome. I was already amazed before I saw the underground segments, and now am even more so. I was particularly tickled by the 1x1 tiles with spider printing being used for Aragog's children.