Lyichir

https://brickset.com/article/84961/2023-super-mario-sets-revealed! New Mario sets! A lot to like here—ice levels, another Koopaling, and plenty of new enemy types!

Only when it's borrowed from other sets released around the same time (for example, the 1x3 inverted arches in the Police Station).

I don't know why you would assume that the Titanic necessarily has more "subject interest" than an architectural set like this. I feel like the Eiffel Tower is at least as well-known, and arguably more impactful on modern engineering than a boat most famous for sinking. Anyway, New Elementary has a very good interview with the designer of this set that goes into some neat detail about the unique challenges and design considerations in this set: https://www.newelementary.com/2022/11/lego-10307-eiffel-tower-designer.html

The Yellow Tusk Elephant also shows up as a minifigure in the new Monkey Mech, so presumably the set with their name is either a mech for them or a giant version of them. If it's a mech, I'm curious whether it'll be a typical two-legged mech or something more like the mammoth mech from Chima (though presumably much more advanced, given how far Lego mechs have come since then).

God, that is gorgeous. The techniques used for the various trusses are incredible. Definitely does far more justice to the engineering and structure of the real thing than any previous Lego depiction (especially the ugly 2007 version). Don't really have the interest, space, or budget for this, but dang if they didn't make the best version of this they possibly could.

I don't think that's particularly likely—Wal-Mart isn't really primarily a grocery chain, nor would it really be represented effectively by a small grocery store like this. Plus unlike Asda, the colors wouldn't be right for Wal-Mart.

Flat Silver, by Bricklink standards. Standard "pearl" silver color since 2011 or so.

I mean, I don't see why not. Not all of the Chinese New Year sets are zodiac-themed, and it's not like the holiday will stop being celebrated just because Lego's run a complete cycle of it. Plus by the time Lego gets to the end, the aftermarket prices on the earlier ones will likely be absurd.

Yeah, knees are fixed, with hinge plates in the front and Mixel joints in the back to lock in the angle. Ankles are a single ball joint. Hard to judge how stable the ankles will be without having it in hand, but they've made it work before with similar techniques to brace the ankles against the feet. As for new techniques, I didn't notice anything too dramatic—mostly just standard hinges, SNOT, and other techniques used for multidirectional shaping. But it works—it doesn't seem to have a bad angle to view it from.

Having mostly built this on Stud.io, a couple thoughts about this new version: It seems a LOT sturdier than the previous Monkey Mech. The old one had a sturdy core, but depending on how you held it it was easy to accidentally knock off the gold spoiler pieces (some of which were secured by a single clip), the foil flags (also attached by one clip each), the fingers (again, attached by a single clip each), or the arches on the cockpit hatch (which could become detached if you gripped the torso wrong). The new version replaces the thin flagpoles with robust Technic frames for the foil cloud "wings", its cockpit hatch is more robust, its fingers are broader and more secure, and its angled armor plating is secured much more reliably. It's a little thing but I appreciate that the spring-loaded missiles (which can be attached on either side of the jet or over the shoulders of the mech) have a closing latch in front of them to prevent accidental misfires when not in use. I love a good shooting function, but those spring-loaded missiles are easy to accidentally launch with a gentle nudge. I'm a bigger fan of the use of foil in the new version. As mentioned before, the flags on the earlier version were easy to knock off or just align in a weird way, and the foil "skirt" and fabric cape, while cool, felt like a bit of a cheat with how much of the back and legs they covered. The new version trades the foil skirt for brick-built flaps that add some great geometric detail, and the back is nicely finished as well even when the jet is detached. The new staff is longer and more elaborate than the previous one (58 studs long instead of just 52), and the way it can be attached to the hands is both less obtrusive and a little more flexible. A lot of the shaping for the torso, arms, legs, and feet is much less blocky, with more angles and curves and fewer exposed studs. The head shaping is also much more streamlined, though a little more bulky in the forehead area. The light brick is a really cool feature. I really like the foil ribbons, which seem to curve a little more naturally than the dinosaur tails used for the old version. The jet that can be mounted to the back as a backpack is a cool feature, and reminds me of my mod to the original that attached the Cloud Jet as a backpack. This jet, of course, is much smaller/lighter, so probably won't compromise stability as much. Speaking of which, the new blade pieces on the jet once again tickle my fancy as a Bionicle fan. Color-wise, the set makes interesting use of both "pearl gold" and drum-lacquered gold. The arms, shoulder-pads, knees, feet, and cockpit use pearl gold, while the head, armor plating for the torso, "skirt", and ankles use lacquered gold. I know some people aren't fans of using both golds, and I'm not always, but it seems quite well-organized here. The figs in the new set look great. The three demons are interesting and varied but also have a fairly harmonious color scheme between the three of them. Monkey King has his circlet for the first time in the theme, Tang wears Tang Sanzang's outfit including an awesome-looking new crown piece, and both Monkey King and Tang have really detailed leg printing on both the front and sides of the legs. And MK's new armor looks great and feels like it could work for fantasy/historical settings as well as the more sci-fi use here as a mech jumpsuit.

Hm... the Yellow Tusk Elephant getting their own set in addition to appearing here does suggest that those three demons might be the primary antagonists of this year's sets. Which is fine, though I do still hope for other enemy and ally characters to show up here and there. I wouldn't necessarily assume that all of the sets will be this big since the three Promobricks has info on are at the "end" of the numbered order for this wave—presumably 80040 and 80041 will be cheaper, since sets released at the same time often tend to be numbered from cheaper to more expensive. That said, the fact that there's only five sets listed seems to imply you might have to get all five to collect all of the heroes' weapons (or possibly wait until the summer wave, where some of them might reappear). That'd be a little more challenging than this year's fire rings, which were distributed rather generously between the different sets. Then again, these new weapons are also a good deal more complex/elaborate than the fire rings that varied only in their color.

I have a feeling it's the former, if only because I don't know why Lego would be privy to a deal with Mattel/Mega before any such partnership was public. Up until now the only times a property has gotten barred from Ideas, it has been because of an ongoing license with another company or for reasons of brand fit. And it'd make sense for Lego to be pursuing a Zelda license on their own terms now, with Tears of the Kingdom on its way next year.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/monkey-king-ultra-mech-80045 Ough... it looks SO good! And they're really spoiling me, a person who likes to try to preview sets in Stud.io, with all these hi-res pictures. They even have a back picture! They almost NEVER have a back picture!

Printed butterflies, though! When that butterfly mold was introduced last year I was hoping it could be printed, and the ones in the Lunar New Year Display set look gorgeous!

The mech looks amazing! Also, on the lower right of the photo, does that look like a Tang Sanzang fig to anyone else?

Can't get pictures right now as it's put away, but to me the legs look fine (they are located under the wings and fairly sturdy). Removing them and adding more subtle supports under the main body might be possible, but without supports underneath the wings might not bear the weight well and the containers wouldn't necessarily have room to attach properly. Regarding currently available sets, there are few that I WOULDN'T recommend (the designs in this theme are consistently strong). Tang's classic design is only available so far in the Dronecopter, so if you want that version of him (which is IMO the best), that's another point in its favor. City of Lanterns is so good that I bought two copies to double it in size. Flower Fruit Mountain and Heavenly Realms are both great, but definitely more display-oriented than your typical Monkie Kid set. Apart from the sets you mention, the Spider Queen's Arachnoid Base is super-cool and reminds me of Exo-Force at its absolute best. The Monkey King Warrior Mech is a little less appealing figure-wise than it was back before Monkey King himself was as widely available, but the mech is still incredibly cool and the noodle shop side build is fantastic. Monkie Kid's Galactic Explorer is one of my favorite spaceship sets in recent years, with a design that looks great either vertically or horizontally (plus spacesuits for all the main cast members save Pigsy, who appears separately in the Chang'e set). Nezha's Fire Ring has two cool vehicles plus Macaque and Nezha, even if it's a little less outstanding than the others I've mentioned IMO (which might be just my preference toward vehicles with roomy interiors over a big and impressive set that nonetheless only seats one per vehicle).

Oh, for sure. Then again, as unorthodox as a solution such as in that set may seem, there's no denying that it works, which is part of where the prioritization argument comes into play—no need to introduce a simple new part in a situation where existing ones do the job, especially in a theme such as Architecture that generally tends to eschew new mold designs. Even in other themes, often creative use of parts like brackets or other SNOT parts are often possible to serve a similar function, so designers can prioritize their budget for new molds and such toward other things that make a bigger overall impact on a set's desirability. After all, as revolutionary as such a part would be for MOCists, I would wager that kids (and even casual adult fans) tend to gravitate more toward flashy character parts or action elements than a workhorse-like basic element you might not even notice is in a set unless you look up the inventory. That's not to say a part like that could never happen! It wasn't too long ago in the grand scheme of things that something like the inverted tile was unheard of in Lego, and now they're fairly prolific. I expect if a simple SNOT plate is introduced it'll become widespread quite quickly in the kind of sets that once used unconventional workarounds—it just hasn't happened yet.

Yes—not trains but I know several adult Bionicle fans were consulted during development of the 2015 reboot. Of course, that sort of thing tends to be under strict NDA, and is probably far easier for Lego to orchestrate for a non-licensed theme where they alone are responsible for who has access than for a licensed theme like Harry Potter, where the licenseholder might be involved in setting embargoes and such. For the Orient Express I don't see reason to worry about AFOL consultation though, since as an Ideas set the fan designer will be directly involved at multiple steps in the process. That's not to say compromises won't ever come up or that the final product will be to every fan's liking, but it won't be because of a lack of AFOL involvement.

I don't think these are "rules" so much as preferences or cases of different priorities. Introducing a new part design is expensive so in a lot of cases, a basic sort of part that doesn't add much to a set visually would only be a priority if something truly couldn't be achieved with other existing parts. For stud reversals that would mean builds that are too simple or small for existing stud reversal techniques to work, but not so simple that they'd want to avoid "studs down" building in general. For angled builds, hinges or Technic are generally more versatile than any fixed angle piece would be, since pieces like that retired one you linked to can only each work with a single Pythagorean triple.

Very neat MOD! Personally as a more casual Castle fan I was satisfied with the set's gatehouse (and certainly wouldn't ask to have paid more for the set to be a little bigger). But your modded version does seem to improve the limited interior space and overall looks quite seamless.

Looks to be the existing dark orange one to me.

The inclusion of shurikens and sais (traditionally Japanese weapons as opposed to Chinese ones) makes me think Ninjago. It's interesting! I wonder if we'll be getting Skulkin again, and if so, if there'll be some sort of twist to them compared to previous incarnations. A dedicated weapon pack is certainly promising, and while we've gotten some somewhat stripped down Skulkin in the Legacy theme, it'd be awesome to see some more skeleton vehicles and maybe Samukai even making another appearance.

A static base could be interesting! I've also thought that the container theming of a lot of their vehicles could make a freight train work as an interesting mobile base. Personally a part of me hopes that now that the main White Bone Demon "arc" is complete, we might get some assorted demons before focus shifts entirely to a new major faction. I'd still love to get characters like the Scorpion Demon and Goldfish Demon in sets, but we haven't really gotten many minor villains unconnected to the main enemy faction since Yin, Jin, and Spider Queen back in 2020. And there are so many interesting potential "villains" in Journey to the West, so it'd be nice to get more than just one of them and their underlings. Another thing I don't think I'd mind getting would be a big castle for the Iron Bull Family. Red Son is one of the most popular characters from what I've seen on Twitter, so if he and his family are going to continue to be recurring characters in the story, it'd certainly be nice for them to appear in a new set now that the 2020 sets are all retired.

If anything this one's simplicity makes it one of those where they could potentially splurge a little with things like new recolors or even prints that weren't available to the model designer. They also might opt for some minor presentation changes, like maybe putting a border around each "scene". But I doubt any major changes would have to be made, at least not without the blessing of the fan designer. That project, the insects, and arguably the Polaroid are refreshingly small after a year of Ideas sets that tended to go bigger and bigger. Not that I dislike big Ideas sets (there's been quite a few gems!), but it's nice to have some more budget-friendly ones to look forward to especially with the recent price hikes.

I think that now that we have concrete info on the new characters/sets this discussion should move to a new 2023 sets topic, no?