Lyichir

It's not a new mold I don't think, but I really like the reddish-orange fox in the Lego Friends Cozy Cabins set! https://brickset.com/sets/42624-1/Adventure-Camp-Cosy-Cabins

The snake lady appears to be Nüwa, a Chinese goddess who molded humanity by hand from yellow clay. Given the symbolism in last year's season of Monkie Kid of MK himself having unclear, probably supernatural origins, I imagine she will be a quite important character in the upcoming season. Another part of her mythology is having used five colored stones to mend the sky—also potentially significant given the appearance of those stones in the new set and the damage done to the Celestial Realm in last year's season.

An understated appeal for me looking back is that it's one of the earliest System themes I remember that really made a point to integrate (some very basic) Technic functionality. You can definitely draw a line from Time Cruisers to later System themes like Power Miners that took that idea further.

Aw, the advent calendar is cute. Not only does it have both Santa and Mrs. Claus, but the whole family has holiday sweaters (including the dog)!

https://www.jb-spielwaren.de/lego-42637-lego-friends-adventskalender-2024/a-42637/ OMG, the new Friends Advent Calendar is SO sweet... it's sort of a "flashback" scene with younger Olly and Paisley, and both of Paisley's parents (including her late mother). Also Olly's cat Gertrude as a kitten, Paisley's rabbit Melody as a baby bunny, and a "snow-kitty" that uses the chubby cat mold along with the top hat accessory from the magical funfair subtheme newly recolored in black! EDIT: Also Paisley's little sister Ella as a newborn baby!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C6aB1PNoSaC/?img_index=5 Pics of the new starter packs, a Soda Jungle Maker Set, and a Goomba's Playground set! The new starter packs are honestly pretty nice... I'm a little miffed, because I'd sort of hoped they'd not introduce new characters, but in fact they have some nice features like a more modestly sized Junior Clown Car, a pink baby Yoshi, and a Fishin' Lakitu! Peach's set even includes a printed tile with the letter she sends at the start of Mario 64! The Soda Jungle Maker Set is really cool as well, with some really nice scenery builds and appropriate characters. The Goomba's Playground is less essential for anyone who's been collecting a while and already has a ton of Goombas, but it's a cute set regardless.

You're not going to get any sympathy from me on that issue, I'm afraid. I like color coding in Technic and think kids are smart enough to recognize something helpful for what it is instead of having a tantrum about it.

Nice use of those new micro-pistons, though.

Whoa! Incredibly cool! Given the barebones nature of the lunar rover I can't help but be reminded of the classic Car Chassis set.

Do none of the wave 3 sets with the Never Witch appeal to you? I think her fig is the same in those as in the Sandman's Tower set (and her new appearances come with that additional "smoke column" piece to stand her on).

Looking at Cole's mech more, I realize that it's setting a brand-new record for articulation in large mechs. Not only does it have ankle, knee, hip, shoulder, elbow, and wrist articulation, but it looks like both the thigh and upper arm can "twist" along their axis, allowing for even more poses. The kneepads are also interesting since they look like they slide up and down as the knees bend, to allow for better coverage of the knee joint.

So now that we have better pics I can confirm that that dragon mold isn't Norbert but is in fact a new dragon mold! Probably for the best since the Norbert mold relied a bit on printing for detail whereas this one has more molded detail that's good for its use as a statue.

I feel like we were discussing it a few pages back. It was a set of separately sold stickers (I think maybe exclusive to Germany along with those duffel bags and similar licensed merch?) that included things like the City astronauts but also included an alien face printed on a 1x1 round brick. The review on Jay's Brick Blog features a pic of the brick that confirms that it is the same one from that earlier merch reveal. EDIT: Found the post, it was in the 2024 Space topic and not this one:

Looking at bigger pictures now, you're right! I actually think that's probably preferable since this one seems to have more molded detail to compensate slightly for the lack of printing.

To be honest I'm still generally of the opinion that animals that are big enough to be brick-built often benefit from being brick-built—especially things like arthropods where segmented, hard-shelled bodies are reasonably easy to make using existing sorts of bricks and hinged parts without looking significantly less natural or organic. In other animal news, one of the upcoming Ninjago sets seems to use the new baby Norbert mold from Harry Potter in unprinted gold as a statue—reminiscent of how the old baby Norbert mold was used similarly in the Fire Temple set.

Very interesting sets. Cole's mech is massive—with one of the giant Ornithopter wings from the Dune set in gold for the sword. I don't mind the lack of other figs so much though it is out of the ordinary. The ninja team combo vehicle feels like a new spin on the Ultra Sonic Raider archetype, but doesn't excite me the most. The tournament battle arena looks pretty decent. Looks like the statue uses the new baby Norbert piece from Harry Potter unprinted in gold, which feels nostalgically reminiscent of the old Norbert piece being used in sets like the Fire Temple. Tox getting a new look is neat—using the mohawk piece introduced in one of this year's Friends sets.

According to Brickset's review of the Milky Way Art set, there's a hidden alien that's a printed 1x1 round brick—presumably this is the printed 1x1 alien that was featured on a space-themed sticker set recently. Hopefully it doesn't remain exclusive to that set, since obviously purchasing a set of that size for a single 1x1 round brick would be impractical to say the least.

Yup, there's a thicker macaroni tube used on the panda, Z-Blob the Knight, Izzie's Dream Animals, and Cooper's C-Rex. It seems to be 3x3 on each end, with cross axles able to connect in a 3x3 cross shape (similar to the 3x3 "weapon barrel" piece used with it in the Z-Blob set).

JB Spielwaren has bigger pics of the two sets: https://www.jb-spielwaren.de/lego-77052-k-k-spielt-auf-dem-festplatz/a-77052/ https://www.jb-spielwaren.de/lego-77051-flieg-mit-dodo-airlines/a-77051/ Not a ton of pics, but the back of box pics give a better look at the inside of the buildings and how the RV opens up (confirming that the top contains storage for K.K.'s gear and merch). The inside of Resident Services features an ABD (Automatic Bell Dispenser) machine, as well as the lost-and-found bin. The interchangable, customizable flags in both sets are also a neat touch.

It's the same piece used for the faceplate on the Z-Blob the Knight mech: https://brickset.com/sets/71485-1/Mateo-and-Z-Blob-the-Knight-Battle-Mech

Theme branding on otherwise generic Lego merch like brick storage cases, minifig display cases, water bottles, etc. is nothing new—similar things have been done for other big themes like the various Lego Movie themes. I don't think that delegitimizes this Space theme so much as it indicates that Lego's merchandising partners want to capitalize on that big, cross-theme push.

It's not really "marketing research", it's just a promotional video. Last year Lego did a similar video: But it's also not trolling—just social media marketing (not just to kids, but also to parents who might be amused by youngsters' takes on their childhood sets and maybe inspired to buy them new ones). And this year Lego DID bring back Lego space to some extent (which is probably why they got kids together to make another video themed entirely around that). If Lego does bring back castle I wouldn't be surprised to do a video like this on retro castle themes, even if the new Castle sets aren't purely remakes or reimaginings of old factions.

Speaking of "not really Lego" merch, the other day I saw a photo of some plushes from Target. Orange seems to have ALSO joined the ranks of plush Classic Space minifigures, but what I found even more charming was the plush of one of the new aliens from the City space sets! I already thought those were cute as heck so seeing it turned into a cuddly plush is amazing! EDIT: On a different note, the other day when we were discussing the new space parts from Build-a-Mini, I mentioned that the main thing I thought would improve the jumpsuit-style torso would be if one or both arms were reddish orange (matching the right side of the torso print and giving it slightly more of a Futuron feel). Unfortunately, reddish orange minifigure arms didn't exist... but today I learned they soon will, since one of the newly revealed Animal Crossing figs has arms, hips, and mid-length legs in that color! Still no standard-length legs or hands (so you can't quite go full Futuron with it), but still a nice development!

You keep claiming that Lego "can't do a non-licensed space theme" because of some hypothetical licensing clauses but by any reasonable metric, this IS one, and proof enough that no such clauses exist. There's no way that a licensing partner like Disney would be like "you can't have an original theme that's based on sci-fi futuristic spaceships and planetary bases but you CAN put a giant "SPACE" label on a bunch of existing themes and include all that same subject matter, or make sets based on pre-existing space themes, and none of those concerns apply anymore". Such a clause, if it existed, would be as good as useless, especially since the distinction between what themes qualify as "space" and which ones don't is generally arbitrary and fan-devised (as evidenced by the long-running debates about whether Earth-based themes focused on sci-fi spacecraft like Alien Conquest, or space-based themes that don't leave a single planet like Rock Raiders, qualify). I also think the claim that "people who want futuristic space ships" will be turned off by the City label is, again, wild conjecture. I doubt non-AFOLs really have any strong opinion of what the City label means—the insistence that it must be modern-day, must be realistic, must have all these specific qualities, are again, mostly fan-devised (and have had to be revised repeatedly as the City theme has stretched beyond the "city limits" in recent years). I doubt many parents would be bothered or upset by the fact that these space sets have a City label—the most association they're likely to have with the Lego City brand is "something my kids already like".

An Isabelle reappearance is slightly disappointing but given the subject matter of the set (Town Hall/Resident Services), it makes sense for at least one staff member of that establishment to be included. Plus at least she's in another of her outfits. The camper van is an unexpected inclusion seeing as it's only in New Leaf and the mobile game, not in New Horizons which the rest of the set is based on. But it looks like it adds some nice play potential, especially since it looks like you can maybe store some of K.K.'s road gear (amp+microphone) in the roof. So kids can role play K.K. arriving in town and setting up for a concert, or packing up and hitting the road again. Audie and Tangy are great choices for villager additions. Audie has a fun story behind her since while not confirmed, she might be named after an 87-year-old player who went viral in 2019 when her grandson shared her 3,580 hour playtime for New Leaf. She's also the first wolf villager to appear as a minifig, making it easier for other characters like Chief or Whitney (among several others) to be made in the future. Tangy is our second cat villager to appear but is certainly one of the more unique and distinctive choices with her fruit theming! And it's a little thing, but I do like the autumnal tree in the Resident Services set, marking the third season to be represented in these sets (after spring and summer). With these two prominent subjects out of the way, two of the ones near the top of my wishlist are still the museum (with Blathers and possibly Celeste and/or Brewster as well) and the Able Sisters' tailor shop (with Mabel and Sable). But there's of course plenty of other potential for more villager-focused sets as well, along with possibly sets themed around visiting characters (including holiday-themed visitors). EDIT: One last thing I forgot to mention is it's a little bit of a shame that the airport includes Wilbur but not Orville, since there's not too many sets other than the airport that he'd be well-suited to.