Lyichir

I dunno, I think whether it's "better" than other polybags is a little subjective. On the one hand, if you're looking at it purely from a desirable parts perspective, it seems fairly generous. On the other... you can definitely tell that the generosity with things like figures has cut down a bit on the actual amount of building it involves (compared to something like a figless Creator polybag or Star Wars microbuild, or even a single-fig City polybag). A part of me can't help but hope that there's another, larger set down the line that features this underwater setting, because I'm a sucker for underwater settings and apart from the sea scooter, the MK fig, and the staff, there's not much about this poly that feels distinctly "Monkie Kid". A bigger set with a more detailed location build and/or a submarine or similar aquatic vehicle could be great. Maybe they could even make it a "water adventure" for Sandy!

Not a lot that can be assumed from just the names of these sets. But a Pixal vehicle as the main focus of a set (and not just a side build) is exciting!

Any spacers picked up either of the Monkie Kid space sets (80032 and 80035), or taken a closer look at reviews/instructions? Any thoughts? I recently built the two of them and was seriously impressed. 80032 is a solid build but doesn't bring that much new to the table apart from its humorous bunny/carrot theming. 80035, on the other hand, I honestly felt ended up being one of my favorite spaceship builds ever (certainly a cut above the Space Police III sets I had a decade ago, which was the last "space theme" that I collected in earnest unless you count The Lego Movie 2). The detail is just off the charts and I love features like the complex rocket array, interior crew cabin, and rotating vehicle bay/engine room. The build was incredibly enriching throughout and I feel like even without stickers it'd look fantastic (though if you're not opposed to stickers, they do add nice details to the wings and to the holo-screens and control panels in the interior). I also really like how good it looks displayed either in a vertical orientation (ready to launch) or a horizontal one (cruising/in space). If you're not a fan of the brightly-colored Monkie Kid color scheme, a creative spacer might be able to modify it to change the colors out and replace theme-specific details like the metallic gold highlights and brick-built cloud motifs to make something that could feel at home in another theme/faction. The toughest bit to substitute currently might be the heavy use of this part for some of the details, since until Monkie Kid started using it heavily it had fallen a little out of use and doesn't come in a very wide variety of colors. Still, I bet a MOCist like @Murdoch17 could maybe find some sort of workaround if they were interested!

I mean, Mei already is (and is aware that she is) the literal descendant of the White Dragon Horse—her parents' company (Dragon Horse Shipping) is even named after them. It's not a coincidence that her various vehicles are all dragon and/or horse themed! So I doubt realizing that she fills more or less the same role on MK's team would be that much of a shock to her. I'm not really sure we'll see the rest of Monkey King's companions outside of flashbacks or visions, though. I think that costumed Pigsy from the trailer is just the modern Pigsy (perhaps in some sort of talent competition) rather than the original Zhu Bajie. Recently (after having put together the City of Lanterns set IRL) I've been doing more messing around on Stud.io to figure out what I'd like to do with the extra space (and the extra parts) if I did decide to buy another set and double up the center section. One thing that occurred to me today is that buying a second set would make it quite easy to double the width of the Lego store—using the parts of the duplicate (and a few from my own collection) to make the interior more spacious and add features like a checkout counter that the original didn't have. After I'd come up with a basic start to expanding that, I realized that the extra copy of the Lotus Hotel could also be used to add a third story to that—both making it a more prominent landmark in an expanded city and eliminating the issue of a "hotel" having only a single guest room! Having ideas like these about specific ways to use some of the additional parts that another copy of the set would get me makes me that much more eager to potentially go ahead with doubling up on that. Probably will be a while anyway, though—the City of Lanterns is currently sold out in my region, and even if it weren't there's still plenty of Ninjago and Monkie Kid sets on my wishlist that I haven't been able to pick up yet. Still, after a long MOCing drought, having ideas for actual creative builds is a refreshing change of pace that helps to keep the pandemic blues at bay a little.

I don't recall how many extras I had. But if you're going over the set to see if you missed any, the first thing I'd check would be the bottoms of the lanterns—all of the ones that don't have a tassel piece on the bottom have a 1x1 gold plate instead. I'm very impressed with the trailer too! It confirms the main "quest" of this arc is to obtain the True Samadhi Fire (a powerful, near unquenchable fire which in JTTW was wielded by Red Son). One of the scenes also seems to possibly include the scorpion demon from Journey to the West (or a similar scorpion baddie), which might end up appearing in a set at some point. One thing that's conspicuously absent from the trailer is Chang'e or any of the scenes with the Galactic Explorer or Moon Cake Factory. That might merely be an omission (and they appear in the season along with the rest of the current sets), but I wonder if their debut might be being saved for the second half of the year (to tie in with the Mid-Autumn Festival). If we were getting a TV special or something to tie in with that, it might explain why we don't seem to be getting one for the Lunar New Year like we did last year.

Yesterday some of the sets I ordered finally arrived, and I was able to build the Galactic Explorer set! Overall it may just be one of my favorite spaceship sets ever. A couple assorted thoughts about it: It's great looking, either displayed vertically (as if on the launchpad) and horizontally. It looks great from pretty much every angle, even areas like the rear and underside that are sometimes an afterthought. When displayed vertically the launch tower lines up nicely with the crew compartment. I was really impressed how well the rover fits into the cargo compartment. The bar piece locks it in place really well so that it doesn't jostle when you swoosh it. Speaking of swooshing... it's eminently swooshable. There's a great spot in the middle between the side windows and blasters that is perfect for holding it. I love that it has room for MK's whole crew in the interior (even Pigsy, who comes in a separate set). If I had one critique, it's that I wish there was a spot for Robot Mo in the cabin. There's a plate with bar attachments in the forward part of the crew cabin that I'm not completely sure what it's for (I think maybe for attaching all three colored flames when you collect them?), but if it weren't there Robot Mo could probably fit in that area between the cockpit and crew cabin. The minifigures are great. I love the spacesuit design and the dual-molded helmets. Sandy in particular looks wonderful and I appreciate how they included a printed beard in addition to the beard piece on top so that he can wear a helmet and still look right. The shadow monkeys are also delightfully spooky. The set does have quite a few stickers and there are some parts of the build where you have to apply a lot of them at once. That said, for folks who dislike stickers or just want to keep the parts unstickered for future MOCs, I think the set would look just fine without them. I did get one part in my set that had a sort of defect I hadn't seen before—one of the lacquered gold ingot pieces must not have been treated right because it was very pale and had a patchy, powdery texture. I might contact Lego customer service just to let them know but I probably won't need a replacement since the upcoming polybag includes several loose gold ingots that I could replace it with.

I feel like a ratio like that wouldn't be particularly helpful since, among the Classic Space sets that used blue and gray in the first place (since several, especially later ones, often used different color schemes like white and trans-blue or gray and trans-green), they often tended to use them for different purposes. Blues were common for the "body" of spaceships or moon outposts, while grays tended to be used for baseplates (obviously) as well as wedges for wings, details like radar dishes and booster rockets, or the occasional small rover. As such, trying to calculate an "optimum" ratio likely wouldn't help you achieve the right feel anyway, since the amount of blue versus gray on an "authentic-looking" model would depend highly on what kinds of features your MOC included. A more subjective, holistic approach would likely serve you better, where instead of worrying as much about an overall guiding ratio you based your choices on consideration of how your colors are blocked and whether areas of the MOC could benefit from more or less of a particular color.

For me it can be sort of the opposite. I often get bigger sets that I'm looking forward to sooner (occasionally I'll wait for a good general discount like the AFOL days at Lego brand stores, but sometimes for sets I've really been anticipating I won't even wait that long) and save smaller ones that I can more reliably find in local stores for a time when I'm done building the bigger sets and feel like a small set could be a good "pick-me-up". That can sometimes backfire on me a little if I end up putting off the smaller ones too long (which has happened a few times during the pandemic when I'm making fewer regular trips to the store). My dad's a bigger City builder than I am though, so in that case it's often the other way around—I'm more likely to pick up a small set I like when I see one at a store that appeals to me (like the Stuntz bike with Rocket Racer most recently), or one he'd be interested in (like the road plate pack last year), but often save the bigger, more extravagant ones for a gift-giving occasion.

Here's an article about some "set mashups" Lego Japan did where they combined the Lion Guardian with a Technic set. And here's an article sharing some alt builds Lego China did rebuilding various sets (including the Lion Guardian) into Christmas trees. Other than those, I haven't seen a ton of alt builds of those particular sets. I have little doubt that you could use the parts for something else (it's Lego after all), but if you were limiting yourself to the parts of the set, a mech or vehicle like that would tend to have a lot of parts that'd be be best suited for another mech or vehicle (like joints, windscreens, propellers, etc.). Unrelated to that, the details of how the new Monkie Kid polybag 30562 Monkie Kid's Underwater Journey will be released have been revealed. It's set to be a gift with purchase with $40/£40/40€ Ninjago and Monkie Kid purchases from the 10th to the 27th of this month. This suits me just fine since I still have plenty of Ninjago and Monkie Kid sets on my wishlist that I can order at that time.

I believe those are the magical ginseng fruit from chapters 24 to 26! A Monkie Kid CMF could be quite cool. It would be nice to get characters like Mei's parents, the "Mayor", the Lady Bone Demon, and an MK clone or two, though I'd be less interested in one-off gags like the mop and puppy hands. And I'm sure that if they were to do something like that they'd make a fair share of the characters new as well—either newly created characters or other returning demons or other characters from Journey to the West. I think including Monkey King's original traveling companions (the predecessors to MK's team) would make for a nice core to a line like that! That said, I don't know how likely something like that would be. As it stands right now the theme is quite niche outside the Asia Pacific region, so if they did release something like that, many fans might have to settle for truly random pulls from online Lego or Amazon orders instead of being able to buy them in store. In other news, Justin Ramsden made a short Twitter thread about his new City of Lanterns set, including pictures of how you can use two sets to make it bigger:

Some material ID numbers in Lego exist for ink colors for prints/stickers that do not have a corresponding plastic color—some examples include 332 Fluorescent Red Ink and 333 Fluorescent Green Ink. There may be others along these lines occupying some of the "unknown" gaps (such as, for example, the metallic light blue and red ink colors that have been used on various Ninjago and Chima figures, among others). There's also the possibility that there are other recent colors that do not yet show up numbered in inventories due to only showing up in "multicombination" parts, One example is Transparent Bright Green with Glitter, which has been used in a Ninjago spinner and the geode piece from Lego City sets, but has not yet appeared on any single-colored parts.

77398 Hogwarts Hospital Wing contains a couple of parts that could be of interest to Pirates builders. Firstly, the treasure chest with flat lid seen in other Harry Potter and Minecraft sets appears there in black. Secondly (and to me most interestingly) the bottle of Skele-Gro uses a minifigure baby head in white with skull printing! I'd been hoping to see the minifigure baby head used more widely and released with a wider variety of printing, and this doesn't disappoint. Compared to the standard minifigure head (which is slightly wider than 1x1), the baby head mold is exactly as wide as a 1x1 round brick. It's also only two plates tall not counting the non-functional mini stud on the top. And compared to standard minifigure heads (which attach to a stud), the baby head attached to a 3.2mm bar (though the 20482 "nipple plate" allows it to be easily adapted to standard studs). I feel like this would make great ornamental detail on a pirate ship. Its size would allow it to be integrated into things like railings or relief-molding quite easily, or fit into a crowded cabin as a small carved memento mori. I don't buy Harry Potter sets out of principle so I'm hoping that this piece gets used in other sets and themes as well. It would fit quite easily into a theme like Ninjago or Monkie Kid with skeleton-themed baddies, and if Castle or Pirates gets a revival any time soon it would obviously be easy to use there as well. Best-case scenario, it becomes available through Bricks and Pieces despite originating in a licensed set so that people who want to use it liberally as decoration can get plenty!

In the Hospital Wing set there's a part that I think could be quite versatile—the minifigure baby head, molded in white with the classic Lego skull pattern! It'd be great on a shelf or the end of an evil wizard's staff, among many other potential ornamental uses. I won't buy Harry Potter sets so I can only hope that piece ends up reused in other themes. It'd work great in Monkie Kid for all sorts of accessories associated with the Lady Bone Demon.

I don't think so—based on the shadows on nearby parts I think it's just light grey with some photoshopped magic effects (note the light blue "sparkle" on the upper right of the gear. Dark turquoise wouldn't be a totally new color for that part anyway—it appeared in that color in Throwbots/Slizer (though I think the mold has been updated since then).

To be honest, I feel like fears of the app controlled sets becoming obsolete are overblown. Don't get me wrong, Lego has a bad history of abandoning old apps and software, most of which have been designed more for short-term promotion or hype than for long-term viability as games or services. But the direction they've taken with the Powered Up and Control+ apps gives me more hope than some of those other apps and games, because it seems to be designed with longevity and future compatibility in mind. By bundling "app-controlled" sets together into one suite of apps, the likelihood of that compatibility being brought forward into future iterations of the app (instead of being left in the past like more resource-intensive/internet dependent standalone "game apps" like Nexo Knights or Hidden Side) goes up considerably. And unlike some of the more pessimistic Technic fans I've seen, I don't see any reason to believe that the broader Bluetooth wireless standard that makes that compatibility possible (as well as compatibility with third-party or fan-created software and hardware) will be going away in the foreseeable future. So even in the event that Lego outright abandons those older products instead of making them compatible with future apps and programs, the fan community and fan-designed programs seem more than ready to step up to fill that need. This isn't to negate your broader concerns about electronic or remote controlled versus physical mechanical functionality in Technic sets, which are a totally valid position to take as far as the overall design direction of the Technic theme is concerned. But I feel like the transition from physically or IR-connected motors to ones controlled by a computer or phone program is a natural step in the evolution of Lego's electronic offerings, and one that shouldn't form the crux of your concerns about the theme's future.

You have a point, but I think a part of that is simply that GWP promos are planned long before the true demand (and whether that results in sets selling out) can be fully gauged. The best potential solution (and one that IIRC Lego has done in the past?) is to simply extend the promotion or bring it back at a later point when the sets have been restocked. I feel like that tends to be especially common for polybag promos like this. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the potential for stock issues in the aftermath of a big release might be part of why the current GWPs are simple polybags instead of something more "exclusive". We might see more unique GWP promos in February or March once the initial demand for 2022 sets has died down a little and Lego has more to gain by incentivizing purchases.

Gorgeous work! I love the plants and foliage near the base.

Okay, if you're going to keep going on like this and describing me as a "cultist"... should I point out that according to the inventory the 60324 Mobile Crane set that started that ridiculous argument for supposedly being "false advertising" DOES in fact use Flame Yellowish Orange for the yellow details? Meaning that the set pictures were in fact a correct depiction of the parts it contains? And that it was even more absurd to suggest Lego be sued over them? Obviously this is going to be ignored but I may as well defend myself if you're going to slander me for daring to have some perspective.

To be honest, almost EVERY licensed theme Lego does is a gamble on whether it will be "good", since most are based on upcoming movies and as such have to be in development well before release. What matters to Lego is that it's a big-budget sequel to a massively successful movie, and therefore odds are in its favor that it will be popular and drive a lot of demand for merchandise. As indifferent as I am to Avatar as a franchise and as skeptical as I am of whether James Cameron's full ambitions for it will ever be realized, I don't think a licensing deal like this is a particularly risky bet for Lego. As far as "original and creative sci-fi themes" are concerned... well, Monkie Kid has not one but two space-focused sets this year, and City's got a pretty ambitious and futuristic space subtheme. That's in addition to the usual plethora of mechs and high-tech vehicles in Ninjago and even rumors of a space center set in Friends. I know they're not exactly what old-school space fans are hoping for from a space theme, but there's certainly less of a paucity of creative spacey sets to look forward to in 2022 than there was last year.

Huh... that's surprising. I really don't feel that positive or negative about that—I saw the first movie once and it was okay but I wouldn't really consider myself a fan. And in terms of sets, if it's anything like the first movie then the spacecraft themselves might not be that different from what we tend to see with Star Wars—very industrial with a lot of grey. The alien landscapes on the other hand could be interesting and have some nice color to them. Do you reckon they'll do like they did with Star Wars/The Hobbit/Indiana Jones/Pirates of the Caribbean and have a few sets based on the first movie before they launch the ones for the upcoming one?

Among brick-based building toys, yes. Way back when I was a kid I had a few other brick brands like Mega Bloks and Tyco, but the quality was inconsistent, and it was frustrating having to sort the non-Lego bricks out of the rest of my collection. And these days even if quality in some of those other brands has improved, Lego puts out enough sets that I'm interested in (and takes up enough of my budget) that I don't really need to start branching into alternative brands!

I think that's meant to be the 2017 Creator Expert Carousel... it has the same blue/yellow canopy as well as the small ticket stand on the left. So probably not a hint at a future set.

Ah, okay. Thank you for the reminder.

So just to check, is it mostly UK purchasers who have received theirs so far? I'm in the U.S. and ordered the Kakapo and haven't gotten any packages or notices about my order so far, but it's quite possible that it'll take a little while before they roll them out to all regions.

Yes, these reviews have me even more eager for these sets! On a side note, since the new sets include tiger-patterned lanterns like the bull-patterned ones from this year, I've started trying to MOC a tiger lantern to replace the bull lantern from the Spring Lantern Festival set (in case anybody wants to update that display for the new year). It's a considerable challenge, since a tiger is a bit of a harder shape to pull off than the barrel-chested bull, but I think it could be done to some degree (though fitting the light brick in could be more of a challenge). Currently I'm taking a little bit of inspiration from the tiger build in 10257 Carousel, since that seems to be a close enough scale to fit on the pedestal properly while still being reasonably recognizable as a tiger.