Alexandrina

What if the Hogwarts Express includes King's Cross and Hogsmeade Station and the entirety of the line between the two!

I'm just a big fan of single-mould trees! I don't know why but they just feel 'Legoey' to me in a way brick built trees don't. Sadly I think you're right, the cypress is gone forever, but I would love to see its triumphant return. If anything, though, a Botanical set might be its way in. A recolour in brown would be great as part of a pinecone build.

It would be this one

What with these and last year's pink frogs, these Botanical sets are turning into a trove of useful recolours of unlikely parts! I wonder if there's any flowers that would require a resurrection of the cypress mould...

I don't know what you mean! My UCS Dobby's Sock is sitting on my shouting at me that every rumour is true! Sidenote: my phone now has UCS Dobby's Sock as an autocorrect phrase. What is this forum doing to me!!?? Watch them not make any sets for the new Indy film!

Honestly, this has seemed inevitable to me right from the off - JK Rowling has clearly got some talent as a novelist (even if she's not the greatest author of her generation) but she is not a very good screenwriter. And that's not a knock on her, it's a talent and like all talents not everyone is great at it. On top of that, when the first film came out it was planned as a trilogy, and later bumped up to five films. Even genuine cinema greats like Peter Jackson have come up with highly suspect films when they find themselves suddenly expanding the length of a series - to me that set off alarm bells that JK Rowling didn't actually have a solid vision for the series. I don't think the slew of production problems have helped matters, and I'd genuinely be surprised if all five planned films see the light of day. In so far as this impacts on Lego, I'm not sure we have too much to worry about - Fantastic Beasts might as well have been an afterthought in the Lego range, and Bricklink reckons we've had a whopping six characters represented in minifigure form. The Lego Harry Potter theme won't live and die on the strength of the Fantastic Beasts films. It might die if the canning of the Fantastic Beasts series heralds a decline in the popularity of the Harry Potter franchise as a whole (especially since I've heard bad things about the plot of the new video game, and JK Rowling's track record suggests that the original series was lightning in a bottle and she doesn't have it in her to revive it with something new if it starts to fade away) - but we've already had most of the key scenes at least once in the range, and Lego have plenty of time to give us Gringotts if it seems like the franchise is in a tailspin, before it gets too dead. I think most of us recognise that the 2018-present run is the best Harry Potter theme we're ever likely to get. Personally I also think it's the last. However long it goes on for, when it's over I can't see anything causing Lego to bring it back again. I've actually not seen it myself and have no idea where it's available, but I feel obliged to plug The Fourth Musketeer as a relatively new release, entirely because a mate of mine is the star! Is that really the case? Seems odd to me, given that Eddie Redmayne has also been outspoken against JK Rowling and still is playing a big part. Though I suppose if it was Katherine's choice to step back, that might explain it. Finding out she's hardly in it has dimmed my limited interest in the film; she was honestly the only person in the first two films who was actually doing a decent job of acting, imo, and that is an indictment on certain other big names in the cast who never seemed to have any love for the scripts.

Hopefully sheep with white faces and legs!

The thing is, whether or not the goat mould is broken doesn't mean we can never have a goat again. It just means we need a designer to decide it's worth some of that theme's budget to introduce the mould. 90th Anniversary Castle set is probably one with a big budget, and more likely than most themes to feature a goat. If we don't see one this year it'll probably be many years!

I reckon they probably had an 'A' list and a 'B' list of potential sets (I swear I remember a comment from one of the theme's designers talking about coming up with thirty-odd potential sets when they started out). The 'A' list is the big-ticket stuff - Hogwarts, Quidditch, Gringotts, etc., that will carry a wave. The 'B' list is probably more obscure stuff, things like the Beauxbatons Carriage, that fans appreciate but would make a lacklustre wave if there were no more iconic sets released, and wouldn't be the end of the world if they got missed out. The theme's expanded life has probably allowed the designers to dip into the 'B' list more extensively - and this might explain why last year and this year they went back to scenes that were missed out the first time. For instance, nice as it is to have the Bathroom, if the theme had come and gone without it nobody would have been too upset. I reckon the original plan for 2021 was to release the Ministry of Magic and Grimmauld Place alongside a Forest of Dean set, a Hogwarts Belltowers set and one other smaller Deathly Hallows set (maybe a Seven Potters set?), before having Gringotts be the 2021 D2C. Instead, those sets have been split up over multiple waves. My personal expectation for next year is a broadly similar spread to this year - with a couple of sets revisiting earlier films and a couple more Deathly Hallows sets, and - finally - Gringotts next summer. One thing worth bearing in mind is that if my theory is correct, there would have been a whole wave preceding Gringotts last year filled with Deathly Hallows sets - probably including both of those sets. In this alternate reality, they've already been released!

You can definitely argue that for Pirates II - the only set released in 2010 was the Imperial Flagship, far and away the largest set in the line. As for themes purposely going out with a last hoorah, that's tough because most themes fit into one of three categories (none conducive to ending with a bang): they become evergreens and don't end at all, they're explicitly designed for a one-year run, or they get discontinued because sales drop. Obviously a theme that's still going can't have had its last set, and themes that only last a year are having all their good stuff put out at the same time (same with themes that exceed expectations and get a hurried second year, like Atlantis). When a theme isn't selling, it's being drawn to a close early, so there's no opportunity for the planned 'bang'. That being said, Star Wars to my mind has had two sets which feel like precursors to potential endings that never ended up happening. Cloud City was released in 2003, a year before the most barren year in the theme's history. And the Death Star was not released for the first time until 2008. Given a multi-year lead time for designing sets, the Death Star in particular feels like Star Wars' Gringotts. When design would have begun on that, the first wave of Revenge of the Sith sets would probably have been hitting the shelves. At that time, there were no plans for new Star Wars material - it makes sense to me that they'd be thinking of drawing the theme to a close. Of course, by the time the set actually came out the Clone Wars was around the corner, and there's been new Star Wars content either in production or being released ever since. I also look to Lord of the Rings for an example of a theme which failed to reach its planned conclusion. It's pretty generally accepted that the poor reception to the Hobbit films led to underperforming sets and an abrupt end to the line and to me all the evidence is there that Lego had a planned grand conclusion to the Lord of the Rings line that never materialised precisely because of underperformance. What's the most iconic location in the entire trilogy? I'd argue that's Minas Tirith. Minas Tirith which would have been an incredible set but which was never released. If you look at the list of minifigures released for Lord of the Rings, there are a handful of gaps: Denethor, Eowyn, Faramir, the Witch-King of Angmar. (Galadriel was also never released in Lord of the Rings sets, but her minifigure from 79015 is perfectly serviceable). It's interesting that all the missing major characters have their most iconic moment in the entire series during the Battle of Pelennor Fields, set at Minas Tirith. If the line had continued for one more year, with a few small sets culminating in a D2C Minas Tirith, then every significant character and location would have been done, and Lord of the Rings would have been functionally a complete range.

I'm reminded for some reason of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and specifically how they prefilmed their ending during the first season (to prevent the child actors having aged too much) but ended up going on for many years longer than planned, due to the show's unexpected success. Similarly, I think Lego were a bit taken aback by the success of Harry Potter since 2018. It's done better than it ever did before when the films were actively being released, and defied their expectations - and I personally believe that the lacklustre 2021 waves were down to course-correction on their part. There are eight films, and for the first three years they seemed to be going fairly solidly through two films a year - only for the curveball that was last year's sets. I know lots of us speculated that Lego had chosen not to produce sets based on the Deathly Hallows, but this year has put paid to those rumours. Instead, I think Lego had set out with a four-year plan for the theme and - faced with incredibly strong sales - found themselves scrabbling for a way to extend the theme's lifespan. Hence last year, with Moments, the D2C and a series of system sets that mostly seemed to be a different style altogether. To me, that was them putting out something to buy them an extra year to reconsider their plans for the line as it bridges the gap from short-term licence to evergreen. I think most themes to attain evergreen status have had that at some point. For Star Wars it was 2004, for Ninjago it was 2013/2014 - for Harry Potter it was probably 2021. What does that have to do with Gringotts, or indeed How I Met Your Mother? Gringotts is probably going to be the capstone of the theme - the final hurrah when it comes to an end. If you list everything that's not been released at all in the revived Harry Potter theme, Gringotts is far and away the most iconic absence. I reckon Gringotts was originally planned to be released with the final wave of sets in Summer 2021, to go with Diagon Alley and to bring the line to a close - it's being withheld to keep people collecting. The theme's longevity has delayed Gringotts because now they have the chance to do some more obscure sets that weren't in the original plan (great for people who want everything) but there's a worry people will drift away from the line once they have all the major scenes. Imagine if Lego had released Gringotts and the Deathly Hallows sets in 2021, and then released last year's sets in 2022 - a lot of people would probably have called it quits, having already collected all the films' sets and not being satisfied with the new design style. Just like How I Met Your Mother had to hold onto its ending for several years longer than expected, I imagine Lego are holding onto Gringotts until the line is ready to be retired.

I mean, it's definitely possible - like you say, it's a good hat for a random Ministry worker (or maybe a patron of the Leaky Cauldron). That said, I don't think the recolour was in preparation for a Harry Potter set - it's been two years now since it appeared at BAM stations, so if it was made specially for a set you'd expect that set to have surfaced by now. But who knows? Maybe it'll come soon. The fact that it exists means it's a contender for when they need to give a random minifigure headwear without dipping into the annual mould budget.

Then I shall be ordering six!

Google Images is actually pretty tame on this one - mainly terrible memes with a few actual pictures of Voldemort poking his tongue out. The preview for Images that you get on the regular Google search, though? At least one of the results appears to be correcting "Voldy tongue" to "Moldy tongue", and that's something I hope Lego never puts into brick form.

It's been a while but didn't the DA Harry leak really early? Like, a long while before the rest of the figures? Of course, I could be completely misremembering!

Ooh I shall definitely be having a looksee on here next month, when I can justify buying more Lego direct from them! (A pity this didn't launch three days ago when I placed a sizable Bricks & Pieces order and talked myself into spending £100 on the moonbase set for free postage)

Maybe it's just escaped my notice but I can't say I've seen many AFOLs treating Playmobil as a direct competitor. It's often brought up in the Historical/Pirates subforums I believe, where the breadth of Playmobil's historical sets are listed - a variety that puts Lego to shame - but whenever I've seen this, it's come with the caveat that Playmobil's product is more conducive to a wider volume of premoulded parts for single uses.

Clearly it was meant to be!!

If that was the case, surely they'd have retired the Xtra baseplates too, rather than releasing them again in new packaging? There's no reason modular and baseplate have to be incompatible imo. Imagine if we had a central keep on a raised baseplate, but outer areas of the set (walls, moat, village, etc.) on separate baseplates, with a series of connections via hinge or Technic pin. It could work imo.

That doesn't really scan with what we've had in the current iteration of Lego Harry Potter. By my count, we've had only a handful of duplicate builds: The Whomping Willow in the titular 2018 set and also the upcoming Shrieking Shack set The Hogwarts Express in the titular 2018 set and the upcoming D2C By and large, over five years of the theme, they've covered DIFFERENT topics. Even the two Whomping Willow sets are from different movies, and the chances are the Hogwarts Express is from a different movie too. That's a good spot! It's hard to tell for sure whether it is, but it does seem the most likely candidate.

Sadly I don't think they'd revive the old monkey even if they were literally doing piece-for-piece remakes of the old Ninjago sets a la 2002-era Legends. They have form: the cypress tree was replaced with a fruit tree for the 2003 reissue of Main Street (10041) despite the cypress tree having been released in a service pack just two years previously - the mould having presumably retired in the meantime. Much as the old monkey had more posability, I'm not aware of any sets which specifically required this added flexibility - if Lego ever found themselves re-releasing old material, it'd probably be cheaper for them to just include the new monkey.

I think it's fair to say from this thread that at least some people are going to be disappointed! It goes to show how impossible Lego's job is, that even a £350 set can't realistically include EVERYTHING that fans would like to see in a tribute to Castle.

Perfect!

Trans Fans Of Lans sounds better. Not sure what Lans is though...

It does lend credence, but it's also just them repeating the rumour from Fulcrum