Mandalorianknight

P stands for Prince of Persia. A returning franchise AND video game related. (Obviously not- I assume, maybe there's a new game coming or something, but it's funny how well that lines up) As I've said here before I've been lucky to get almost every IP I love in lego form- even Dune somehow. (At least, all of them that can get sets- I understand we'll never get Lego JJK or Invincible and respect that). The one thing I really want that we don't yet have is for Transformers to escape Icons and become a full theme.

Aw, man, I totally had it in my head that "big bad wolf" referred to Death. I was planning on getting him and Puss In Boots together for a diorama, but now I'm not sure I'll get any of these figures- I don't have much of a connection to Shrek, and while I loved The Last Wish, the only physical recreation of it I'd want to make is the final battle between Puss and Death. That said, taking away my personal thoughts on it, it's objectively a perfect choice for a CMF and is going to sell like hotcakes. A TON of millenials and Gen Z will be buying these trying to get Shrek himself.

You're never going to make everyone happy with GWPs, but what I would go with is something that, while not including any exclusive elements, does provide an addition (though not an essential one) to the set/sets it comes with. In Gondor's case, a mini Grond with some re-used Barad-Dur Orcs, or a Gondor Soldiers Battle Pack would both be excellent choices. That way you get something that feels worth buying the set day 1, but at the same time dedicated collectors can bricklink or PAB the parts separately if they missed out.

You gotta use the bat-credit-card. Impossible to max out. The joke does illustrate the issue LEGO runs into though. If they're only making batmobiles, and if the batmobiles do poorly, is that because people want wider DC stuff, or because even batmobiles don't sell anymore? Conversely, if they're a smash-hit, does it mean people want more batmobiles, or that they want more DC in general? Unfortunately as much as we want to say LEGO should make wider DC/Justice League sets, kids just don't know or like the characters that much. The reason the 18+ sets generally have that same issue is, I would guess, a lot of the adult market is the guys who would, for example, get scared off if there were minifigures in the midi-scale star wars ships. I'm sure their research has found that there's a lot of adults who will buy the UCS batmobiles but think DC stuff besides Movie Batman is dorky or whatever. Hopefully Arkham does well and we can start to branch out again. Thanks, I'll check it out.

For Lord of the Rings specifically I understand this, because the sets are all ~$500, but for most themes, would you not simply take whatever budget you planned on using for the old theme and transfer it to the new one?

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't really collect many of the DC offerings. I bought the 2021 Tumbler and some of the polybags and that's about it for this modern all-batman era. I would love it if lego would branch out into more heroes again- as of now I only have some batmen and robins, the 2014 Flash and the 2013 Soup- but as-is, I'm fine with my batman and batmobile and don't see the need to collect too many other batmen and batmobiles with my limited budget and space. I may pick up the BvSmobile to mod into the Snydercutmobile because while I don't like BvS much, I'm apparently whatever the limited target audience was for the snyder cut (despite only being vaguely aware of it before the trailer) and would like a representation of that film -the best job any live-action DC has done at conveying that sort of new-mythological comic book event feeling-, but in general I'm just not looking to collect every batmobile. And since batmobiles are about all we get, it means I don't really collect much of the DC universe. For people who do, I suspect there's almost an element of the limited offerings being more of an impetus to purchase the few things we do get- I'm sure there's many people who, if the coming 3 batmobiles and logo released alongside a wave of justice league stuff, would choose the justice league stuff. But since these 4 sets may well be the only options for the year, there are probably a number of DC fans out there who consider something better than nothing and pick them up.

I thought it was $1000. For $650 that's an amazing deal for 8000 pieces and the LOTR license. This may supplant Rivendell for me as the one that I buy.

Absolutely amazing. The Hall of Kings looks like a MOC in the best way possible.

It's just a remake of the 2023 walmart combo pack, except they've removed the jokers so it's just the 1989 batmobile, batwing, and a little gargoyle with three identical batman minifigures.

That checks out- I couldn't remember hearing anything but like I said it makes sense that it would have. I didn't remember the disney calendar but if anything that would amplify the point- there are just enough of these out there at this point that doing one for every theme becomes self-defeating. I doubt lego views it specifically as a "marvel or minecraft" spot, but I would assume they do have limited slots and as such can't make a calendar for every theme. I think we have a pretty good chance- while an 18+ set, he has shown up before, and now he's going to be a major character in a PG-13 movie.

Good move to keep quiet if unsure, but yeah, the trades reported on him back in august. He and Punisher are in the camp of being safe to discuss, I think a few of the villains as well but I don't want to namedrop them outside spoilers in case they aren't. Then you've got some of the leaked villains and heroes who haven't been officially reported on, and then stuff like Sadie Sink's character where as far as I know we STILL don't have a reliable leak on who she is. Sets normally take about a year and a half before release to develop (I would hope the ACs take less, but even if we say it was like 10-11 months, they still wouldn't have too much sales data to go off as I assume the ACs get the most sales in late november/early december), so I doubt they had minecraft sales data when they decided to go with marvel this year- for that same reason I'm not sure the 2024 one underperforming (did it underperform? I imagine it would have- it wasn't the most inspired- but I don't remember hearing much in that respect) would have impacted the decision to swap to minecraft in 2025. As for why they have to share a slot, I assume that's shelf space and self-competition. They already do City/Friends/Star Wars and more recently Harry Potter every year. I would imagine having six on shelves at the same time might be pushing it a little, especially when it's multiples of the licensed action themes. (Which, as a side point, why do we not have a Ninjago AC over these licensed ones? Lego would assumably save some money, I can't imagine it would do poorly, etc. It's not like Christmas needs to be canon to the universe given we have the star wars one.)

Is there a second bigfig character rumored? Lego typically doesn't look at a single minifig's desirability and go "yeah, that's enough to bump the price up $20". I assume the $60 set just includes Hulk, but I have no idea what's going on with the $90 one. That's some hoopty-level stuff. My pipe dream is that it is a final battle set that's a sort of mega battle pack featuring like 14 minifigures (Let's say: but realistically this is just a Hoopty situation but with a character who might be popular enough to pull it off.

It'd also be tough to make them work- the F4 one would have to have fewer minifigures than most ACs given it has 4 available re-uses, and with the new prints normally being used for sweaters (in which case 3/4 of them, if sweaters were applied, would just look like generic civilians. Not that lego's immune to that- Widow got a sweater- but it wouldn't make for a particularly engaging AC as far as figures go.) With the X-men, you've got a few more options- especially if they wanted to be Microfighter Rex level generous and throw a mansion exclusive like Gambit or Jean in the AC now that most people who bought the mansion just for the figures have done so- but I think if they were popular enough for an AC we'd see more normal sets. My guess is it'll be MCU Avengers. There aren't enough figure options for comic avengers and the last calendar was Spidey based. If the designers can make it work, it could be a good way to be a pseudo-doomsday set, by including characters who will wear roughly the same costumes as existing lego ones, and maybe even forgoing a sweater print or two to get us somebody who's costume hasn't been rendered in lego before. That opens up a few figure slots, and given the sheer size of this film's cast, they need every slot they can get. (And you know, purely hypothetically, since the part now exists in that color, maybe they use a print for a John Walker torso and throw the helmet on instead of the awful beret Doomsday's going for. Please?)

They do have Ultron here, and his whole motivation in the comics and movies tends to be "eliminate all organic life" whereas in the show I think he's just stealing technology. Thanos shows up in 4+ sets and the like (and has actually been a standalone iron man villain, unlike Loki), I don't think there'd be any issue with making him just a big purple guy who wants to steal the infinity stones so he can make whatever he wants. Do the whole "stealing is bad" moral. (You could even nod to the comics by having it be to impress his "friend" and just not have the friend be the embodiment of death he's in love with.) "Oops, I let go of the cosmic cube" - somehow actual thanos dialogue With the iron man car and hulk truck, you KNOW the only reason we haven't had one yet is that villain vehicles don't sell as well. Those designers have to have their finger on the trigger. If we ever got a comic-based Avengers Modular, the Thanos copter is 100% either making it in or being a GWP.

That was a WILD tonal shift. I don't dislike the show, but I think everyone was expecting Jod to have a change of heart. And instead he not only stays on the bad side, but gets a lot more homicidal. It's never been confirmed so I'm not saying it should count in favor of the show, but I always loved the idea that Cassian's sister was Kleya and neither of them ever knew. It's the classic star wars familial twist, but with the Andor layer of complication and tragedy. He thinks he's lost his sister and abandoned his search as one of his many sacrifices for the rebellion, but in a roundabout way he does save his sister in the end. If we're counting the animated shows and not going season-by-season, it becomes more nebulous. First off, I feel like I can't rank Visions, even though it has one of my favorite disney-era Star Wars pieces of media in The Ninth Jedi, just because it's a number of entirely unrelated shorts. It's got variance on a level that makes clone wars 08 look consistent. So it floats in an unranked ether. Best: The Mandalorian (S3 was rough but the first two seasons are perfect star wars. The best Boba in canon, a Luke scene that singlehandedly makes up for his TLJ characterization, and Mando himself is a solid blank-slate, everyman projectional protagonist. The western and samurai vibe is great.), Andor (Actual prestige television in the universe. Luthen and Syril are both excellent creations to add moral ambiguity to each side.), Ahsoka (If this show has 100 fans, I'm one of them. If this show has 10 fans, I'm one of them. If it has no fans, I was sent to Peridiea. Baylan is a top 10 star wars character. The lore additions are perfect. I am this show's Sabine Wren's most loyal defender and I love that her mistakes here are thematically in line with Anakin's, only Ahsoka is able to keep her off the wrong path.) Great: Rebels (An OK start but it gets really good. S3 in particular is immaculate. As these rankings show I'm a sucker for mandalorians and the show has some of my favorite additions to their lore.) Good: Clone Wars 03 (cool, but no substance... but it doesn't NEED substance. The show exists so we can go "whoah, sick" when grievous mops the floor with some jedi, or Fordo singlehandedly defeats a separatist platoon, or Windu takes down the seismic tank, or a random clone responds to grievous appearing outside his elevator car by slowly loading and point-blank firing an RPG, backblast be damned), Clone Wars 08 (High highs and low lows), Fine: Skeleton Crew (As I've said before, it's not meant for me, but it's not bad by any means. A fun story.), and The Bad Batch (It has some excellent episodes, but the same quality variance issues as clone wars. The reason it's lower is that unlike clone wars, it doesn't have the semi-anthology and subject matter shifts- it's the same plotline and core cast across every episode- so there's not as much of an excuse.) Rough: Ewoks/Droids (Now I haven't seen these in full, but I've seen enough. And I've seen other 80s cartoons- they could have done better), Resistance (Sort of like early rebels if it never matured and without the family heart.) Actively alter lore or characterization in ways I dislike: Tbobf (They had the perfect boba in Mando S2 and they just... forgot?), Kenobi (this plotline shouldn't exist in canon it breaks so much) So bad it's good: The Holiday Special (I watch this every year around thanksgiving with some of my friends.) The Acolyte: The Acolyte (I will be polite and say only that I think dodging any sets based on it was lego's second smartest move of the 2020- era of the theme.)

If anything, I think the fact that hunger games ideas projects regularly reach 10,000 supporters and still don't get in is a mark against lego making sets for it- whether that's because they view it as inappropriate (which, I would say it's not super likely we ever get anything for it, but we did get Dune and Stranger things) or the license holder doesn't want to play ball. Shrek is probably the most likely, but I do think if lego got the Shrek license they'd want to go all-out and make actual sets for it. This really isn't the same thing- Street Fighter isn't something like Mortal Kombat where there's a ton of blood and gore. I'm not sure how aware you are of street fighter but you seem to be imagining a much more violent and dark concept than what the games actually are. They're fairly campy, the combatants wear bright costumes and a number of them have special powers. It's in essence on par with your average MCU movie- brightly costumed characters- many with powers- have largely bloodless fights. And the MCU's had multiple CMF series. Also, "potentially R-rated" feels like a pretty big stretch when the games are the equivalent of PG-13, as was the last movie they did. (and for that matter, isn't the fact that the combatants are adults better than if they were kids? I feel like children fighting eachother- much less murdering eachother in bloody fashion like in Hunger Games- is a lot worse than a fighting tournament for adults.)

The preschool Spidey writers did say the MCU checks in on their scripts, clearly they're worried about the same thing you expect. (Which makes it even funnier that the "Thing hasn't been to space" line made it in.) "That's not funny. That's not *cough* funny at all." They've got to throw him into a mech or Captain America Car or something soon. Glad to be getting more Ultron, in any form. It is interesting that Loki is in the iron man show as a villain, given the aforementioned MCU check-ins on the scripts, and that he's been a hero in the MCU for about a half-decade now and presumably will be in the next avengers movies. If they aren't checking for things like that, maybe they really are looking over the scripts because they're worried they'll be better than Doomsday's! I still find it funny that this cartoon has a trio of armored Iron Men but it's not Tony/Rhodey/Pepper.

Unfortunately, that's the truth of the matter. If even superman's getting his $15 set retired early, nobody who isn't named Batman stands a chance. The only sales would be hardcore DC fans who buy all the batmobiles anyway, and anyone willing to spend $23 on the "it was me, Barry, I *insert hilariously petty action*" meme. I would be the latter. Reverse Flash is one of the funniest haters in media. He literally goes back in time so he can push child Barry down the stairs at one point. That's stealing 40 cakes levels of villainy. I still can't see it, but I'll take your word for it. Lego's done slight remolds like that before.

I haven't played the more recent games (Aside from playing as Ryu and Ken in Smash Bros) so maybe I'm missing something, but while it's a fighting game, it's not Mortal Kombat. They're punching each other and throwing hadoukens, but they're not gorily massacring each other- I actually don't remember there being blood at all. A quick check shows the games are rated Teen, so it's not anything more violent than Star Wars/the later Harry Potter Books/etc, and it's definitely not as bad as something like Stranger Things. Street fighter would be fun, I think- I'm not super versed in the lore but it has a lot of recognizable characters, and a variety of different archtypes/outfits.

I don't think that sort of reference usually means anything. Daredevil was referenced in an Infinity War set, and I doubt they were planning his inclusion in the Bugle 3 years out. Kingpin was referenced in the bugle but hasn't shown up since. I thought it was a different piece at first, but comparing the two they look identical to me. That said, I don't think it actually means we're getting a new WW. She'd have to be RIGHT around the corner if the mold was resurrected for her as opposed to just fitting the character the CMF team wanted to make. As for the classic superman hair, it never actually left circulation- it was used pretty commonly in the early 2020s and of course has shown up recently a few times (though oddly enough not on superman himself last year.) What difference are you seeing? I've been comparing the two and they look identical to me, though it's a little tough to make out exact details from the BL images of the black hairpiece. I may be wrong but I believe licensed technic sets "count" under the technic theme rather than the license, so there's no concern of that. But we could also just not get a large DC set this year. My guess is still something like a UCS BTASmobile, though.

To some extent there's a limiter on this- obviously Rivendall or Barad-Dur will have higher sales, but I think it would be hard to argue that the Gray Havens or Prancing Pony would sell better than Orthanc at similar prices. It has been 13 years after all, and many adults who have bought some of these new LOTR sets probably aren't even aware that there was an Orthanc set back then. And even for those who are, the cheapest fully complete Orthanc in the US on bricklink is $999.99. I doubt most fans would pay $500-600 more than a new orthanc would be nowadays for a used version of the old one. To say nothing of how expensive sealed copies are- the cheapest is almost $1200. It's important to remember that "Adults who buy lego" is a much, much larger group than "dedicated Afols who use sites like Bricklink", which is something that, at least in the star wars theme, is commonly brought up with all the figureless 18+ display sets that seem to sell well despite most people in the forum saying they'd just prefer normal system sets. Funnily enough, Star Wars went longer than LOTR did without Gondor without a set of the Massassi Temple/Yavin Rebel Base. 24 years. I agree that the main missing locations (Gondor and Barad-Dur) being covered means that the remakes are opened up a bit. I'd still bet on Helm's Deep for 2027.

See, I could never forget that. I could forget something like Skeleton Crew just for being unrelated to most of the franchise, but Kenobi's creation of major plot holes means I can never forget it. Totally forgot about it. I don't dislike it by any means, it's just not my type of star wars story. It's not bad, though- the kid with the visor and Jod were both pretty cool characters I wouldn't mind seeing again. Understandable. We all also seem to have had different blind spots on our lists for the show we found the most forgettable, though I don't know if Mando S3 was yours or if you're just refusing to acknowledge it.

This is a really neat concept- the Artahka MOC is my favorite, I love the idea of the six mata masks floating around his head.

I'd always heard that in regards to not being able to make some opaque parts in translucent colors because the transparent plastic was weaker, and assumed anytime we saw a transparent part the solid part could be made on the same mold, but your explanation also makes sense. Yeah if anything I think it makes it less likely we see clayface anytime soon, sort of like how deadpool hasn't been in a set since his movies started releasing. We know they have a little more leeway with 18+, so maybe we'll get a minifig clayface if lego makes a modular-price-point comics-based Batcave or something, but otherwise I think Clayface's chances of getting a lego figure are about as high as Waxman's at the moment- and he's spent the last few years in the comics locked in a steel sphere by moon knight that he later poured concrete foundation over.

Came back to grab the images for something and realized I'd missed a few responses, sorry about that! Thank you! It is a lot of fun, and something I think the newer and more accurate Grievous molds lost along the way. They definitely look better, but there's something fun about being able to put his head on a normal minifig. It's a good interest to have! Thank you! It came together almost by accident, but ended up working quite well. I'm pretty happy with it and will try to remember to implement it in future MOCs. It's one of my favorite parts of looking at people's MOCs too. User Veynom usually does a great job with that- I enjoy reading his explanation for why his TIE Callopie has so many rockets, or the creation of the clone medical corps, almost as much as I like seeing the actual builds. Thank you!