Lyichir

They're great-looking! Honestly I'm a little unsure which of these I'll build first... as more of a casual Space fan I don't really feel the need to get multiple copies of this set, but I DO want to try building all three models. So should I start with the smallest and work my way up to the main model? Or build the main model first and then take it apart to build these smaller ones (even though I'll probably want to rebuild the main model when all is said and done)? It's hard to decide. I suppose when the instructions are available I can preview all three models by building them on Stud.io to get a feel for how much I really want to build each in real life.

To be honest I'm mostly happy with the parts and techniques used in this set. A part of that is not being super-married to authenticity, (only having experienced original classic space stuff secondhand) and a part is feeling like some of the parts usage in the original set had to do more with the limited number of parts available back then anyway. For instance, I've never been super fond of the use of studded plates as windscreens or skylights in the original sets—visibility through them isn't great compared to a dedicated window or windscreen element. And I think the bucket technique for the directional thrusters is extremely clever and works well for the "upscaled" proportions of the ship (as well as allowing the thrusters to pivot). The new printed computer tiles in this are great and I wouldn't be surprised to see at least some of them reused elsewhere. I do think it's a slight shame that none of the windscreens in this set are genuinely new in Trans. Yellow (especially since I've been trying to MOC a base inspired by this and have been frustrated slightly by the lack of large modern window glass or panels in that color). But for the purposes of this set, the angled double windscreen this set uses is hugely creative and works extremely well for visibility and access to the spacious interior. And we've been lucky to see other Trans. Yellow parts introduced for other themes including Lego Batman, so this is hardly our last chance to get parts like that. Maybe if this set sells well enough, it could even be followed up with by some sort of moonbase set!

I think this is pretty neat. I never had an Atari 2600 (before my time, lol), but I've picked up some recognition of it and its games via some of the media I grew up that referenced it (like the classic early 2000s internet series Homestar Runner). I love the way this mixes nostalgia for that era with Lego references, like the Indiana Jones-inspired "Johnny Thunder" poster, the Yellow Castle and classic-looking dragon for the game Adventure, and the use of the new Galaxy Explorer on the boxart and poster for "Asteroids" (a two-way reference given the Asteroids-inspired screen in the new Galaxy Explorer!) And as soon as I saw this set I knew it HAD to be a Chris McVeigh design. Before he was hired by Lego one of the types of MOCs he was known for was retro computers and video game systems like this, so it's great to see him being able to continue pursuing those passions in an official capacity!

Not a criticism, but there's something slightly funny to me about the stone walls and roofs being slightly more retro in terms of their colors and yet the tree and timbers being brown instead of the more classic black from the original set.

I feel like this is a disservice to what it takes to put together a good Ideas proposal. Even for something pre-existing, deciding what is worth including/leaving out, and what level of detail is appropriate, can still be a creative challenge. A TV set doesn't always translate one to one to what would make a good playset or display piece, and even something like figuring out the dimensions and geometry can require a fair bit of research. Then there's factors like changes to a scene in a long-running series—which iteration of the set is most compelling, and how can details from various episodes be combined into the best possible single product? Altogether even if the IP or subject matter isn't something designed by the project creator, their creative input is essential to making a coherent proposal in the first place, let alone one that can garner the level of support necessary to make it to review. And really, I think the idea of what Ideas "should" be is such a vastly subjective notion that it's meaningless. Ideas isn't meant to be for any one person's tastes, and sometimes the tastes of a longtime Lego fan are the LEAST relevant to the theme's overarching goal of appealing to new audiences with crowdsourced concepts.

I could see how the name could hint at a digital component (perhaps a virtual "dreamworld" of sorts that could use AR tech to bring sets to "life"), but apart from that I'm not totally sure what this might entail. Probably too early to say. In any case I've been impressed with past AR themes like Hidden Side and Vidiyo even without always making the most use of the apps, so this could potentially bring some interesting sets and figures as well.

I personally think a part as versatile as a new arch is WAY more interesting than an animal mold or weapon that would have less impact overall on the look and design of the castle itself. People are talking about this set like it was the last or only opportunity for a goat when honestly, small animal molds and minifigure weapons are practically tailor-made for something like collectible minifigures where they have a big impact on the appeal of an individual fig, and where individual figs can be easily acquired in quantity even without resorting to the aftermarket. In a giant set like this, introducing a new weapon or goat would both have very little impact on the appeal of the set as a whole (goats may be popular but I doubt they'd sway buyers to drop $300+ on a set unless they were already interested in the set on its own merits), and would make people who want them in quantity have to resort to bricks and pieces or aftermarket sellers (since buying multiples of a set like this for the goats alone would be absurd).

Huh, I don't know! One possibly easy guess is that it changes the music (possibly to the iconic castle music from Super Mario 64), but it probably has other gameplay effects as well. As a side note, I kind of wish some of these unique pipe types introduced new pipe colors. Green and yellow are good and all (plus the black used for the cannon in last year's Airship set), but it'd be cool to get red and blue pipes as well.

Honestly the lack of Bionicle parts is probably a big part of why it didn't get a "full" tribute set this year. As much as I personally would be pretty pleased with a System-based tribute set, I think there's quite a lot of Bionicle fans for whom something like that would lack the essence of what made the theme appeal to them in the first place. So going ahead with something like that might just have been doomed to disappoint a large number of those who voted for the theme. As burnt out as I feel by the chilly reception to the last Bionicle reboot, I wouldn't be surprised if Lego might still take note of the overwhelming turnout by Bionicle fans for that poll and already have something for Bionicle fans in the works. But even if they do try to come up with something, it might take more than a year of development to truly do the theme justice. So maybe we'll see something in the next few years. If nothing else, 2026 will be Bionicle's 25th anniversary—a full quarter century!

IP just means intellectual property. Non-licensed sets like Ninjago or Bionicle are Lego's own IP, wholly owned by The Lego Group, whereas licensed sets like The Office or Star Wars are another company's IP licensed to Lego.

I think my point was that there's no reason Lego can or should adhere to what any one person believes its "essence" to be. This set is not preventing other, more traditional Lego sets from existing, and will appeal to different groups of people than those sets would. A broadening of the audience is not a betrayal of Lego's values, and in fact can be a gateway for some of those new builders to learn or relearn the joy of building. Some of them will probably be content with this and let it sit on a shelf somewhere, but there's always been people like that—creativity can be encouraged but it can't be forced. And I'm sure others will see this and decide they want to build another scene from the show, or build their real life workplace, or build whatever the next thing that inspires them turns out to be. For the adult audience especially, getting people to buy a set is an essential first step to getting them building at all, and I don't think appealing to even seemingly mundane interests is a bad way to do that.

I dunno... I'm not even a huge fan of licensed themes, but I see people creating memes, crossing over TV figs with other characters, or even just doing role-play with a single set on the internet all the time. And I think that's a form of creativity, too, like it or not. It seems weirdly dismissive to assume that the people who get these sets build them and never do anything else when them, when a big part of their design seems to be to function not just as a display piece (for which they are significantly less impressive than other sorts of sets) but as a stage for creative play (which their diorama-style open layouts are practically ideal for). I also think something rubs me the wrong way about people whining and griping about these sorts of sets even when sets like the Galaxy Explorer and Lion Knights' Castle are coming out and being phenomenally well-received. The "trend" this sort of thread seems to be trying to describe, if it exists at all, seems to be toward offering a wider variety of experiences in Lego, to reach a wider audience. And dismissing that as lesser (especially when Lego continues to excel at the kinds of things AFOLs DO like alongside these newer sorts of subject matter) seems pretty gatekeep-y.

Whoa... designer Niek Van Slagmaat shared a VERY early concept of what would ultimately become Macaque's mech! It's neat to get a peek behind the curtain at a concept that's so radically different from what ultimately ended up in the show and sets!

Can't help but be a little curious about how well you could modify the giant Bowser into another variant of him, like Dry Bowser from New Super Mario Bros. or Meowser from Super Mario 3D World. Since he's not very dependent on printed pieces, the main challenge would be to do color and shape changes while preserving the functionality.

I'd hesitate to rule out price increases based on that simply because the list seemed to largely cover already-released sets—and in the U.S., the Ninjago sets release at around the same time as the price increases are supposed to go into effect. So they could be excluded from the list because the price increases will already be in effect at the time of release. It'd be nice if Ninjago didn't get price increases over here. But the price increases seem to largely be applied to larger sets, and there's several of those in this new Ninjago wave, so I sort of doubt that they'll be excluded over here when they haven't been in other countries.

Oh, one other thing to note—I know that in the past at least low-selling retired products (like some of the last wave of Exo-Force sets) have been sent to conventions and such to be given away as prizes (BrickFair VA is my main experience with this). But I don't know how much of that comes from physical stores vs. online inventory.

Went to the Lego store today and built some figs including the new "Black Falcon" knight, a wizard, and a lady pirate! Something that just occurred to me... do you think the Build-a-Mini stations might ever include space-themed figure designs? I know that exclusive figs have included modern-day, fantasy, and historic-themed figures before, but I can't think of many sci-fi figs that have released that way. It could be neat to see more figs of that sort through Build-a-Mini, especially if they took inspiration from some of the space themes of yore.

From what I've seen they usually end up discounted.

This is gorgeous! The stonework strikes a great balance of being detailed without overwhelming the eye, and the interiors and base are very well-done.

I really like how these are used to not just simulate those big cartoony feet, but even add a '90s-esque foot shuffling feature! It makes me wish that cam came in more colors, so that I could use them to come up with big versions of other Mario enemies. Sadly the only ones that are more colorful than blacks, whites and grey are medium blue and yellow, which only ever came in one set each!

Very neat! It's really detailed as a display sculpture. For a second I thought this didn't include compatibility with Lego Mario, but sure enough according to the description there are action tags for having them fight this giant Bowser (and a plate on the front of the stand for linking this to the rest of a level)! That's a neat touch considering the number of games where Bowser becomes giant for the final battle.

Speaking of Black Falcon colors, I do appreciate how the Lion Knights Castle gives them black helmets again (since in the original Black Falcons sets most of the figs wore black helmets). The silver of the blacksmith set didn't necessarily look bad but the black helmets do help to give the new set a little more classic charm. I'm not sure how well black helmets would work with these Build-a-Mini torsos, since they aren't as dark as the Black Falcon torsos and legs introduced with the Medieval Blacksmith. I think if I get one of these new torsos I might give them a silver or grey helmet as an analogue for the single grey-helmeted knight in the Black Falcon's Fortress (who also used red for their plume and hips and might be intended to be some sort of leader or commander).

Taped is my preference, though it's not a super strong preference. I like being able to keep the boxes, but I do it more out of habit than anything else these days, so despite punch tabs impacting the condition of the box more, rougher condition doesn't majorly affect me. If all set boxes were punch tab it'd be a let down, but as it is the larger boxes tend to be taped, and those are the ones where keeping them in good condition matters more to me (since when I do use the boxes for storage I tend to consolidate them into the larger boxes).

The issue with brittle brown parts occurred within the past... I guess 15 or so years? I don't remember the exact dates. Had to do with a batch of bad plastic granulate that affected multiple colors of plastic. On most colors it caused notable discoloration and was able to be isolated and removed, but on colors like dark red, reddish brown, and occasionally dark brown it persisted in Lego's supply for quite a while. I think two or three years ago Lego finally announced that the issue was fully dealt with, but on older sets it's still a problem. That said, I don't really know if buying new-in-box sets is a good workaround. Mint condition sets from that era are just as likely to be affected as ones that were put together, and to be honest you might have MORE luck avoiding bad parts by buying used sets/parts since if they're still in good condition at the time of being packed/shipped to you, there's probably a better chance that the parts were ones that avoided the issue than there is rolling the dice on brand-new parts from that era that have never been put to the test. Couple that with the fact that new-in-box sets are generally more expensive anyway, and I don't really feel like you'd be getting much added security for that money.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/big-bad-island-expansion-set-71412 Super cute! I've been wanting to see a level with big versions of enemies (like Giant Land from Super Mario Bros. 3, Tiny-Huge Island from Super Mario 64, or the Supermassive Galaxy from Super Mario Galaxy 2). This one definitely exceeds my expectations—I love the extra detail the larger enemies have gotten, and Iggy coming in the set means that we're now more than halfway to having every Koopaling available in Lego form!