icm

Ok, there's another quote that supports the idea that Star Wars blocked Space for the duration of the first license period. I'm still not convinced about the second, third, or fourth license periods.

Including a nice juicy delicious rumor of a $250 Icons Space Shuttle and 747 carrier aircraft out in May

Uh, that is not what I had in mind when I pictured a City tower. I might try to Bricklink the spaceship but probably not.

I called Customer Service and asked if they had any more information about this order. They said that a big shipment of Pick a Brick on around March 3 had gotten stuck in customs, and it looked like my order was a part of that. They said it should hopefully be delivered by the end of next week. I wonder if PaB getting stuck in customs has anything to do with You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters picking fights with all and sundry after taking over the Ministry of Magic.

I like what I see of the house so far. If the interior is good, I'll probably try and get this set for half price without minifigures.

There have been a handful of brief comments in passing by former employees that support the theory, but I don't think there's enough weight of evidence to confirm the theory beyond a reasonable doubt.

Strange New Worlds, 10497 Galaxy Explorer, 10355 Blacktron Renegade: modern homages done right!

@Mandalorianknight, this is @danth's favorite conspiracy theory. Just let it be.

Take a look at this. https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-198070/IBrickedItUp/cabover-semi-truck-and-optimus-prime-mech/#details

Well, whatever small blue planet was in the background of the box art for Space Police 3 and Galaxy Squad, the actual content of the sets for Mars Mission, Space Police 3, and Galaxy Squad was as far-out as it was for any pre-1999 Space theme, and IMO that's what counts. But I don't really think it's worth hashing this out again. Because everything is under NDA, there's very few statements other than circumstantial evidence to back any of this up, but it does appear that changing availability and theming of Lego Space is at least somewhat correlated to Lego Star Wars license renewals and renegotiations.

Nearly three weeks later, my Pick a Brick Standard order that I placed on December 9 and that was shipped on March 3 still hasn't arrived.

Yeah, the color of Jango Fett's jumpsuit has never read as any shade of purple to me. It's always seemed to me like a faded navy blue or denim blue of a piece of clothing that's lost a lot of blue dye and become grayed and muddy from being thrown in mixed washer loads too many times - which seems fitting for a single dad on the go whose skill set is assassination, not housekeeping.

The Pokemon license has not been entirely exclusive in building bricks. Keeppley has had the Pokemon license in Asia, while Mega has had it in the West. Not all of the licenses Lego acquires are exclusive licenses. Other brick companies, like Cada and Rastar, are still doing licensed Formula 1 race cars despite Lego acquiring a license to the entire franchise. If Pokemon remains a non-exclusive license and Mega retains the right to make Pokemon sets, then this is a smart move by the Pokemon license holders to expand their market. Otherwise, it's an aggressive move by Lego to cut off one of their main competitors at the knees, just like the rumored acquisition of the Star Trek license was an aggressive move to cut off an emerging competitor (and their main competitor in Germany) at the knees. Just as Star Trek was Bluebrixx's major license, Pokemon and Halo are the two major licenses that have been Mega's bread and butter over the past decade or more. Mega has been doing such a good job with their Pokemon line that I hate to see it go to Lego. The Lego product line will probably be much smaller, less diverse, less long-lived, and more expensive, while being plagued with gray ball joints, too many stickers, and bizarre choices for scaling and play content. On the other hand, it could be a surprise hit like Super Mario, which has generally been a pretty good line despite the frustrating lack of minifigs. I suspect that Lego has taken over the license from Mega instead of sharing it, which is why Mattel (the owner of Mega) is retaliating by moving aggressively to take market share from Lego in the adult building space. Mattel Brick Shop, which launches in May, is marketed as having higher quality than Lego at lower price, and the rumors for its first products are a 1500-piece Mercedes 300 SL. That would be striking directly at Lego's highly successful line of Creator Expert/Icons cars. It'll be interesting to see how this all goes down.

Congratulations! I kept hoping one of your ships would be selected. Now my main question is, will I be able to afford this when it's finally up for crowdfunding?

Nah, that steering wheel has been around for ages.

Also, the available supply on Bricklink is much smaller than we really think it is. If every mom or dad who wanted to get the OT cast for their kids went to Bricklink after not finding them in available retail sets in the toy aisle, the remaining supply on Bricklink would plummet and prices for the remaining supply would skyrocket. That's the inherent nature of the secondary market.

Sure, but what if you want Lego figures? Action figures don't scale very well with Lego when you just want to play with Lego. And that's not the regular retail market anyway. Mom and Pop in the toy aisle aren't going to know to go to Bricklink to get secondhand Lego minifigures outside of the sets they came in.

See, that's nostalgia for you. I first got into Lego at that time, and even when I was the target age I wasn't very impressed by Town Jr sets when I saw them in the mail order catalog.

Not just divided with colors. One seating class has seat back entertainment, the other doesn't.

I think the 2023 passenger airplane did a pretty good job of having two separate classes of seating and a trolley for the flight attendants.

Adam Grabowski seems to do pretty much all the cars and trucks in Super Heroes (and occasionally other themes: he did the truck in the Twilight house, the little Land Rover Defender, and the City recycling truck). I think he does a pretty good job with that. He also did the 2024 X-men jet (which is really a fantastic build that looks great and is tremendously swooshable, it's just horribly overpriced), the 2019 Captain Marvel Quadjet, and the 2019 Batwing. Mark Stafford and Chris Perron seem to split the spaceships and Quinjets between them, and I think they do a good job with those. Mark Stafford did the 2023 Quinjet, which is one of my favorite Super Heroes sets and overall airplane sets ever. He also did the 2024 Hoopty, which is actually a pretty good spaceship and a pretty decent build, it's just horribly overpriced. Chris Perron did the big Benatar, the Bowie, the big Milano, baby Rocket's ship, and Rocket's Warbird, and I think those are all really good. He's also done most of the Marvel character cars for the past three years, and I think those are good builds and fun sets, if overpriced. He did the 2019 Endgame Quinjet, which was my favorite Quinjet at the time but has since been completely surpassed by the 2023 Quinjet in every way. Chris Perron also did the Lightyear spaceship, the Monkie Kid Galactic Explorer, and the Monkie Kid White Horse Dragon Jet, but those are outside Super Heroes.

Just out of curiosity I counted the number of non space buildings in Town in 1995. Just three! Five in 1990, seven in 1985, five in 1980.

I think a $100 school would work really well. The last two City hospitals were really good at $100 and $120. I think a standalone airport terminal would also be really good at $100. Really, I think $100-$120 is the sweet spot for a large standalone City building with one or two small vehicles to go with it.

Yeah, the recent downsized Police and Fire stations haven't been a really successful experiment. The small buildings with road plates were a good idea that needed to stick around a few more years for more development.

I think we can all agree with that, but that's not specific to City or Town. Personally, I think 60104 is the best City airport terminal, but that's just me.