Lyichir

Obviously not a classic, unlicensed space theme, but the new Guardians of the Galaxy sets might be of interest to some. The small-ish Rocket Raccoon spaceship in particular has in part 35193 in Trans. Green, a nice angular windscreen that'd be great for late Classic Space or Space Police II MOCs. And the bigger ship uses 52978 in Trans. Red, which hasn't appeared in that color since a 2007 Bionicle playset.

I understand your point, but what you are suggesting would make the kind of theft you are referencing practically unnecessary since stealing the most desirable contents in the shop itself would be made trivial. And being able to tell whether or not a set had been stolen from would provide little overall benefit if the method of doing so encouraged thieves by making the lengthy process of buying, pillaging, and returning sets unnecessary to acquire valuable parts like minifigures or other exclusive elements. I think the best method of ensuring that you are getting a complete, untampered set is probably to order sets online through Lego or another reputable online retailer. And that kind of purchase (much more common today than in the 80s and 90s when physical flaps or windows were included on larger sets) wouldn't really benefit at all from those features.

I think one major issue with those (apart from the environmental impact of single-use plastic packaging) is that while they would make theft of the most exclusive, desirable parts more evident (as in, subsequent buyers would be able to notice they were missing), they also made that theft that much easier (since thieves wouldn't have to sort through the contents of a set to find parts and figs, they could just tear open the plastic cover and all of those parts would be ripe for the taking). Having that kind of visibility would be more of a curse than a blessing if you could no longer find sets that HADN'T been broken into. Heck, at a lot of retailers in the U.S., the bigger sets that in the past might've had those sorts of features are fitted with anti-theft devices that'd prevent a box flap like that from being opened, and sometimes even have display cases where you can see the bigger sets in their fully constructed glory. Those sorts of things probably go a long way toward replacing those older-style box windows in a much more secure fashion.

Not MAJOR news but apparently there's an incredible-looking new Monkie Kid ad in China: I wish my internet sleuthing skills were good enough for me to find a higher quality upload of this video, but even this rather compressed one looks pretty epic for a Lego ad!

EXTREMELY good combi build! I love the helmet/visor and the V-shaped chestplate. The trident and colors remind me positively of Gali, Master of Water from the 2015 Bionicle reboot.

To be honest this was the kind of thing I'd hoped to see ever since those buildable Harry Potter figs first showed up, so it'd be nice if this were real! The map looks a little awkward (it's scaled as if it were a 1x1 tile instead of a 2x2 tile), but otherwise I really like how this looks.

I think that sort of thing is going to be massively subjective, depending on what interests you. For some people the modern day subject matter and more realistic architecture of a set like the Daily Bugle is just less interesting than the ornate fantasy architecture and organic landscaping of Rivendell. Personally I'm more impressed with Rivendell as far as its design and techniques are concerned, though considering I rarely collect licensed themes I'm not really interested in buying either.

I'm sure Azure Lion will appear in at least one other set in the summer. If I had to guess I'd half expect him to get some variety of mech or something as well. That said, it's hard to make any predictions on price point—he could show up in a slightly cheaper set or he could end up being in the biggest summer set as well.

I don't really see Paisley being Irish as stereotyping at all? If Paisley's interests or personality were stereotypes it'd be one thing, but I'm certainly not aware of any Irish stereotypes about being shy, soft-spoken and loving music. Just being Irish and having red hair isn't really stereotyping, especially considering there are other major red-haired characters like Mia who AREN'T Irish.

This is incredibly clever! An Exo-Toa for this Tahu is a cool enough idea on its own, but to do it as a combi build with just one other set is extremely resourceful. I particularly like the head detail using those telephone handsets.

I'm not generally surprised to see weird, cynical takes from you, but this one feels particularly off-base. I'm trying to remember the last time Lego made a big to-do about a new color introduction... maybe back when the Friends theme launched with five or so new colors introduced at once? Otherwise new colors tend to be largely something that's not the focus of marketing and that only nerdy AFOLs like myself make a big deal of (heck, sometimes other AFOLs don't even notice a new color, as evidenced by the post above where someone only discovered that one of the colors was new when they built the set). It's a far cry from the Halloween Bucket I had as a kid that boldly proclaimed on the packaging that it had "new orange bricks!" Like, yes, new colors are something that can impact set sales, the same way new part designs or new subject matter does. But that's just common sense—people who already have Lego are more likely to be inspired to get more if it's something that wasn't already available and widespread. Hardly some nefarious or arcane business machinations.

I do certainly miss more fantastical or sci-fi functional Technic sets (like the Rahi from 2001 or arguably things like the Cyber-Slam/Competition theme). The shift to focus more on real vehicles seems to have been popular among dedicated Technic builders but is ultimately less interesting to me. I had hoped that the Bionicle reboot (which brought functionality back to the basic figures) could be popular enough to pave the way for more large creatures or vehicles like G1 Bionicle got, but sadly that didn't come to pass. That said, it doesn't necessarily decrease my enjoyment of the character/story side of the theme, nor my appreciation for a small one-off tribute like this set.

WAY too early for 2024 sets to be leaking, if this is real it's likely later this year.

Just built the Conkdor set (the first Mario set I've gotten this year). Despite its simplicity compared to some of the bigger sets, it looks great and tipping/resetting the neck is inherently a lot of fun even with no major in-game "reward" for it. Reminds me of one of those old drinking bird toys (which I'm sure inspired the design of Conkdors in the first place). In general I really love a lot of the bigger enemies. I especially love "boss enemies" like Bowser, King Boo, and Boss Sumo Bro, but even larger "basic" enemies like the Thwomp, Conkdor, big Goomba, Koopa Troopa, and Spike are a lot of fun.

Another Ninjago City set would be awesome... though I'll have to rearrange my chest of drawers where I keep my Ninjago City sets to make room! Ideally I'm hoping for another straight section so I can keep them all in one row. And if it's more than one and a half baseplates wide I might have to completely rethink where I keep these.

I don't know if the Team Hideout as a whole is going to show up... It may be that like the City of Lanterns, the specific contents of the set aren't as important as establishing a more general setting and tone. I assumed that maybe Zhu Ganglie's restaurant in episode 4 might be loosely based on the restaurant in that set, but otherwise none of the facilities in that set seem to appear in any of the ten episodes so far. In general, apart from the two smallest sets in the wave which show up at the beginning of the season, none of the major builds from the sets this year have appeared so far (no elephant mech, no hideout, and no Ultra Mech). It's not entirely unlikely that at least some of them might appear in a later TV special that resolves this year's storyline. But honestly even if some of them don't appear I don't totally mind a more character-focused season, and the set designs are great whether they explicitly appear in the show or not.

To be honest, I'm getting tired of seeing the qualifying themes being described as "almost solely for children" as an adult fan of several of those themes. Ninjago in particular is probably the single most Bionicle-like current theme, with a lot of shared DNA in both its story (colorful elemental heroes fighting evil) and its set designs (with plenty of big Technic weapon parts and some of the best mech and creature builds available in Lego). I'd think fans of Bionicle would be less dismissive of Lego's other original themes, especially after decades of being on the receiving end of that dismissiveness from older generations of AFOLs. But I ought to be more used to this community disappointing me by now.

I didn't get the impression she lost them—just that to keep them from getting out of control she can't utilize their full power in most scenarios.

So, here's the major new characters introduced so far this season, with notes about how likely I think they are to appear in sets. Minor spoilers for season 4 below... Here are some of the things that I think may be possible subjects for sets in the future. Again, spoilers: All of this said, like last season, this year's season ends on a cliffhanger that will presumably be resolved in a TV special later in the year. Some summer sets may end up drawing more from subject matter in that than from what's happened in the season so far. EDIT: Added a character I forgot.

Quick tablescrap I came up with using one of the weapon pieces from the Monkie Kid theme. I could see this being nice ornamentation for the windows on a pirate ship. The brick attaching the rake head piece is just a 1x2 brick with Technic axle hole.

Just a small observation I made recently—it occurred to me that one reason they used teal for the Azure Lion instead of one of the actual azure colors might've been to avoid people mistakenly associating them with Sandy and Mo (who already use Medium Azure for their face/body color and have a slightly similar hair color). The darker teal color and bright yellowish orange hair also does resemble his portrayal in the classic 1986 TV adaptation of Journey to the West.

Personally I interpreted the satchel as a low-budget substitute for the printed leather pouch from the original fig's waist (absent on the new fig), but I agree a cape might've been interesting.

Very nice review! I agree that it doesn't necessarily pair that well with City of Lanterns, but I appreciate the modularity anyway–I've already expanded my City of Lanterns set both with existing and custom modules, so being able to do the same with this will be great (especially if any future sets include other modules that better suit this set's rural, mountainous aesthetic).

Apparently the new season has dropped in China! Hopefully not too long until the international release. The tweet above includes the new intro. While Amazon Prime's ability to keep up with the series in the U.S. has been a joke, recently the free VOD channel "Kabillion" announced that they'd be carrying Monkie Kid in the future as well. No dates yet, but maybe they'll be better about actually making newer episodes of the series available without having to wait a year or more.

The best case scenario is a new Dalmatian mold that is nonetheless generic enough not to be IP-locked. So far none of the existing Lego dog molds are really a perfect representation of a Dalmatian—the German Shepherd mold has pointed ears that don't "flop", while the Labrador has floppy ears but looks too fluffy to resemble a Dalmatian's lean body and short coat.