TeriXeri

Short duration doesn't have to mean bad sales, but LEGO has been more doing weird stuff lately , City sets lasting 6 months or less for example. Barracuda Bay retiring way before the 3-in-1 ship was quite a surprise , moreso since the 3-in-1 ship got a 30% price raise and is still around years later, especially since Barracuda Bay is the set with Redbeard. In fact 3-in-1 came 2 years before Viking Ship, which has now retired, despite the Viking Village just released. Galaxy Explorer retired quite fast as well but at least somewhat confirmed to be replaced soon, and a big overall influx of Space sets this year. Medieval Smith is gone but there will be a Medieval Village set etc. I think a 2025 Pirate Ship focused set is probably expected, or at least a set with Redbeard or Ironhook etc, by then the 3-in-1 ship likely is gone too and will have been available 4.5 years which is exceptionally long compared to the 1 year of 2015 Pirates , or 1.5 of Barracuda Bay.

MTS might be LEGO exclusive, while most IDEAS sets are eventually found on broader market (outside some exceptions like Viking Village which was a Target / LEGO.com exclusive afaik) Many of the more amazing PPP to price ratio sets have been like that recently (3-in-1 Birdhouse, Cat Hotel, Dreamzzz village, 3-in-1 Castle , Viking Village etc have been pretty much LEGO Exclusives over here, and then for 2024, Chinese New Year Restaurant is the big standout at 1800+ pieces for €100 / $130) Also parts count alone could be inflated by lots of 1x1 tiles or flowers, in a village, roofs could be covered by 1x1 dots, trees with flowers, or just tiny plates being mass used in walls for texture or something. Without images, it says little, even for 2 LEGO exclusive sets, Viking Village has 2100 for €140, while Eldorado has 2500 for €215 .

The Ley-la doll in 42619: Pop Star Music Tour Bus is great (better colors and face expression compared to the Talent Show set), too bad the set itself doesn't look interesting to me at all (compared to already owning Popup Party Bus, and Vidiyo Boom Box stages)

Confirmed, with instructions released now, the thing that looked like a slot , are just a 1x2 plates with bar to the side, mounted on a 8x6 plate, eventually that increases total size of modules to 8x10, way too big for that truck. Also the "mario" plates that are meant to look like airlocks, or entrances, are just stuck on with technic pins, so there are no openable (hinged) doors unlike 2019 and 2022, but with the orange element, I believe those 2019 and 2022 shuttles/capsules can still dock on there. Parts wise, the modules being brick-built is nicer for making custom sized or corner space base/station modules, instead of the predefined 8x8 large "airplane" type of parts, even tho it does obviously increase parts count quite a bit.

I do like they went back to locations and also even somewhat went back to the first Family Dinner set from 2019 as well (which was not sold in Europe or US as far as I know) I think this is a great set , at that price as well.

Modules (except Friends) do look to have some sort of slot gap on the bottom, so maybe they can sit on the yellow thing, when that's on the truck bed, but since there are also tools clipped on the truck, and modules have those orange connector rings, it looks they are too big to fit, and would probably still look awkward sideways, truck bed is only 6x8 , and without tools, those clips on the back still make it like 6x7. Overall that truck is the weakest vehicle of the entire wave, but still more interesting then that weird half transparent rover with solar panel stickers in the 2022 Lunar base (likely included because of the Nasa VIPER rover, as it says so in the description)

It's more like Aquazone in Space to me, but without rival factions, and the yellow miner figures are like Rock Raiders. But yeah some Classic Space sets did have gatherers as well, just simpler times meant the things that were found were as simple as 1x1 (6880: Surface Explorer / 6821: Shovel Buggy / 6847: Space Dozer in particular) , the 2024 vehicles are larger, but I think that's fine ,as 2022 City Space had some proper sized moon buggies also. Both themes involved collecting crystals, returning them to base, to manufacture things (in this case Batteries of various sizes) It's just not as industrial as Rock Raiders, or something like City Volcano/Miners, as beside 1 big rock wall, most what's found seems to be right on the surface, so the mech set is basicly the biggest wrecking equipment, and the rest is done via hand/robot drills. Aliens would be basicly the equal to what was Aquazone's native ocean life , ray/octopus/shark (not hostile unless roleplayed as such)

Lots of 45 degree "bricks" exist from 2x2 to 5x5 6107 14413 2462 87620 30505

Yes but playmobil has been selling packs full of animals for decades now, I mean, tons of Safari, Zoo, Circus sets, and standalone animals like lion families have been released many times in a row. Probably cheaper for them, as they aren't bound to strict Stud sizes and clutch power etc. And then I look at Pick a Brick animal price for LEGO, I remember when it just started out, horses were listed at like €7-9 each, now it went down some, but still, and then the more one-of-a-kind, large animals like Orca going for more then what an entire Playmobil Orca set would cost back then (I had the playmobil Orca back in the day, it would float in water) Of course LEGO can do a calendar with just small , less complex animals, but then I think they'd kinda run out of variation quickly if they try to keep prints as simple as possible, and reusing the common animals already in production would also be kinda meh (like at one point, LEGO husky showed up everywhere, even in CMF long after it was already in many other sets) Friends Play Cubes certainly showed LEGO can do many colors of animals at the same time (altho random and thus quite annoying to collect), and even for 2024, there are multiple different hamsters, or small animals in some Friends sets that aren't crazy high cost, but likely are mass produced as they are regular small/mid cost sets.

It's more that a €80-100 Advent Calendar with 24 animals likely isn't a very profitable product for LEGO (if it includes new moulds, and unique prints/colors)

The thing with adding skin tones to all figures, is that figures suddenly become far less compatible. Incompatibility of course already exists all the time with hand colors, dual moulded "shorts" , and collar/skin printed clothing, but going to 6+ skin tones across the board for everything will still change things drasticly. Friends already have less mixing , matching going on, it still is very much possible, but with most legs having hands and leg skin shown, and the addition of more skin tones in recent years, the main characters that become compatible, are repeat of same characters, or their families, unlike something like a yellow figure 3-in-1 set which even suggests changing figure parts around. Of course, there are also plenty minifigs without any sort of colored hands or skin prints (for 2024, the majority of City does not have yellow hands), where a skin tone head would be easily swapped, as long as it's simple like 1 piece.

I think they will still go with the style from Lion Knights Castle as it should function mostly as an add-on / expansion to that existing set. With any luck, LEGO decides to give a hint at more, by adding "Castle Collection" on it (like they do with botanical, winter, modular etc), but I doubt it'll be the plain black box design. The box on the Majisto GWP wasn't that great , it still matched the original, but sharper, but also wasn't labeled 18+ , compared to earlier designs like Blacktron Cruiser or Forest Hideout, however, 1993 also was after the "LEGOLAND" banner era of themes, so putting one on it would have been somewhat odd as well. Of course it all depends what factions will be present in this village.

Yeah only saw a short video of it, but pushing the power cell button to open up the rear nacelles/rocket engines whatever you make of it, has an awesome sci-fi implementation to it. Not just Star Trek vibes (where the warp engines start glowing blue, with a distinct difference between "Impulse" and "Warp"), but also generic sci-fi play, and with the orange color , kids might just imagine "fire" can come out of those engines as well, like a jet, or rocketship. And it comes at a low price point, with good parts to make different ships out of it, if you have more then 1 set, or maybe combo-models (like in-house space ships with split functions)

First results that pops up on "electric side loader garbage truck" is the Heil RevAMP real life truck, which the LEGO model is based on, and looks much much closer to the IDEAS submission ever did. LEGO didn't just put a Mack sticker on it to claim it. The truck is Mack, but the exact mechanism used is made by Heil , a company that exists over a 100 years, and making garbage trucks all over the US since at least the 1930s. Since this is what they say the "world's first all-electric side loader" (which means no hydraulics and a seperate battery for the collecting mechanism) , which I assume made it special enough for LEGO to produce it. "The Heil RevAMP electric side loader is more environmentally friendly than any other standard automated truck on the market." Sounds exactly like the talk LEGO has been doing for the past couple years, with plants from plants, paper bags etc. https://www.heil.com/about/ As for the mechanism being similar, tbh, one of those "designer interviews" should cover that question. I think if this was some unlicensed brick-built garbage truck with similar mechanisms released shortly after the IDEAS was rejected , then yes, it'd be somewhat suspicious to see, but this released years after, in a different theme and scale, and LEGO making this licensed probably cost them a fair bit more then a regular system truck as well. What makes me think what triggered LEGO to finally make such a truck, is still the whole "world first all electric side loader" thing, and not so much that a few years have passed on IDEAS. Not trying to downplay the IDEAS design here at all, but, if there's one place to solve the case, it's by asking the designer of this official set.

LEGO tried , and I think they ultimately decided that opening new distribution centers for Pick a Brick with Bestseller minifig parts was probably easier to manage (and their parts prices got adjusted over time) That said, the online Pick a Brick will pretty much always be more expensive then actual Build a Minifigure in physical stores, as cost can vary a lot between parts, especially accesoires/animals. (Minidoll parts/special moulded minifig heads even moreso s,ome of the crab heads from monkie kid are listed at over €5 or minidoll torsos and legs are over €2-3 each )

Logo was orange, but not like the Classic Space style: 2019 (Mars/Moon) 2022 (Mars) 2022 Moon Also applies to minifigures, 2022 and 2024 both use classic space styled logo on torso's, silver for 2022, and what looks like orange for 2024, while 2019 used the different orange one. 2019 was a bit of a weird one, as it had a Rover TEST drive set with a City in the background , Artemis like Rocket (named Deep Space Rocket), Lunar Space Station ,and a futuristic Mars Research Shuttle, and that rocket set which was kind of a mix of a Soyuz and SpaceX Starship , it tried to be a lot of things at once. It's kind of tough to put a timeline to that.

Would be nice to see those old round trees come back, and also the large pine tree , at least for some classical intended sets. LEGO still does the small pine trees, even added quite a few colors for it in recent years. I do love the modern plant pieces too, even the new ones from 2024, large fern/palm leaf , and bush/tree leaves parts are great additions. Of course brick built trees and bushes are nice, but sometimes, seem to be used to give illusion of high parts counts, to stay within or above the community's "10 cent" rule. (Friends 2024 Shopping mall just has a ton of small plant pieces as decoration) That said, repeated use of the same pieces in large quantities, doesn't seem to affect price itself as much as large special parts, sets like 3-in-1 peacock has a lot of the same parts but a good price ratio, same for those small botanical sets like blossoms or daffodils, of which half the set are just technic tubes and mini axles. DOTS was a good example of that as well. As for the dragon, it's strange it's the Batlord / Cedric the Bull era dragon (which appeared at least 4 years after Majisto/Dragon Knights, skipping the entire Royal Knights, and Dark Forest in North America). However, I also can understand LEGO keeping around Crusader/Lion Knights in production for longer, instead of going to produce 2 different Lion factions at the same time. Black Knights also did not appear either, LEGO went straight to their sucessor Dragon Knights, with the Majisto set, but perhaps those Icons type of releases don't really follow a linear chronologic path anyway. I don't really think a Black Dragon like that would fit with the Town Square, but is there because of the CMF batlord. LEGO has reused most parts from the Bard before, so who knows, if those Batlord parts do show up later.

https://www.heil.com/bodies/revamp-electric-side-load-garbage-truck/ exists, and that's pretty much the exact truck LEGO based it on.

Seems 3-in-1 is doing well with that, with the 9+ Pirate Ship (2020) and 9+ Castle (2021) still staying around for it's 4th and 3rd year , much longer then the 2022 viking ship that's retiring despite viking village just releasing, but I know those are not full themes, and just 1 set each, but they are inbetween the demographic of smaller kids, and 18+ . And creator tend to leave out certain things like horses, rowboats, larger animals and plant parts etc (they build them from bricks instead), not perfect, but must be doing well if they sell this long, and the castle is even exclusive here, and the Pirate Ship had a +30% / €30 price increase too. I do hope Creator does get a larger Spaceship set in summer, as it's due for one, and this is the Space year after all, with Cyber Drone being succesful as well.

The frames are not in dark blue currently but still produced in various colors. It's mainly the inserts that have not been made for 20 years in 2024. (2004)

The set never got below 25% off in my country in Europe , most of the time not even 10% off. In fact it was only 1 shop that was allowed to do discounts here, which is one that works together with LEGO and sponsors LEGO Masters here, so I assume some deal with LEGO was in place on exclusivity. A few stores try to sell it above retail price (€130-160) right now, which seems to indicate they bought set at retail , but try to make profit. If it was a really bad seller or LEGO overproduced them , they'd be dumped like some of the later Vidiyo, LEGO Movie 2 , Hidden Side, etc, even LEGO themselves had 30-50% off on their site, if it were a bad seller, they needed to get rid of. Maybe LEGO did overproduce for Walmarts tho.

Exactly, even some small TNG Star Trek Shuttles could get up to Warp 1.2-2 , without having giant engines, of course not enough to travel between stars, still quite the power to travel within systems. (size in LEGO would be about the little space train cockpit from the 2024 space station), but with imagination could be a cargo barge (larger in the shows) instead. Going somewhat bigger , like the ship from the 4+ set, would be about Runabout size, Warp 5. Then the interstellar spaceship and the one from the base would be longer range starships, Interstellar Spaceship looks the most advanced, like a Defiant class size, sleek and fast, while the ship from the Base has a cargo/crew compartment. Of course this is not using any proportional scale to ship/minifig size, just how I imagine those ship classes. There's not really a giant spaceship this wave unless you consider the Technic Dropship, which then would be a much larger cargo ship to deploy base modules, or perhaps space station parts. But then again, nothing has to be like that at all, they could go any speed/distance you imagine.

Blue seat with what looks like a tile as monitor.

Technic space sets are bigger then minifig scale but those seats should still allow them in (but not connected)

Looks like ANGULAR PANEL 3X5X3 W/ 4.85 HOLE, used in many technic sets as seats